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Sn iSlemoriam 

Cassius M. Clay, Jr. 
1846-1913 





(^.7y\. (Xei^ 




[Aetat 45] 



From a Photograph taken while President ot the 
Constitutional Convention 



The 

Speeches, Addresses 



AND 



Writings 



OF 



Cassius M. Clay, Jr, 



Including A Biographical Sketch 

BY 

James K. Patterson 

PRESIDENT EMERITUS, STATE UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY 



The Winthrop Press, New York 

M C M X I V 



F45& 






Press 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 



Biographical Memoir, by Pres. James K. Patterson 9 

Commencement Speech at Yale, 1866 21 

The Fallacy of Usury Laws: A Speech on the Conventional 

Interest Law 27 

The Electoral Bill Agitation 45 

EXTRACTS FROM RAILROAD ARTICLES. 

I. On Public Aid of Local Companies 51 

II. On Limiting Railroads to Railroad Business 53 

FROM THE RECORD OF THE CONSTITU- 
TIONAL CONVENTION. 

I. Speech, Accepting Presidency of the Convention 55 

II. Speech on the Revision Clause 57 

III. On Railroad Commissioners 60 



Speech Before the Democratic State Convention, 1895, When 

Defeated for the Nomination for Governor 65 

The Louisville Post's Summary of a Speech Before Commercial 

Convention 69 

In Eulogy of Hon. Wm. Goebel 73 

Speech on the Tariff, at Louisville, Nov. 3, 1894 77 

Speech in Favor of Sound Money, 1896; a Reply to Sen. Stone 

of Missouri 93 

Cause of the Split in the Democratic Party, 1902 105 

[ 5 ] 



PAGE 



Why Conservative Democrats Should Vote for Taft 109 

In Answer to Judge Lindsay 117 

The Tobacco Question 125 

Same, In Answer to Judge O'Rear 139 

The Taxation Amendment 145 

The Initiative, Referendum and Recall 149 

Same, Further Discussed 157 

The Philosophy of Life : a Fragment 163 

Nature of the Allegiance That a Man Owes His Party to 

Support its Nominees 175 



BIOGRAPHICAL 
MEMOIR 



BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 

The common ancestor of the historic Clays of Kentucky 
is believed to have been John Clay, a native of England, 
who came to Virginia as a Grenadier of the British Army dur- 
ing Bacon's Rebellion. From him it is said Green Clay, 
pioneer, soldier and statesman, was descended, who was born 
in Powhatan County, Virginia, August 14th, 1757, and who 
emigrated to Kentucky when about twenty years of age. He 
was well educated, a good mathematician and a surveyor. 
The large bodies of Blue Grass land which he acquired laid 
the foundation of the ample estate which he left behind him. 
Kentucky, which was then a part of Virginia, elected him its 
Representative in the Virginia Legislature and afterward 
chose him its delegate to ratify the Federal Constitution. 
He afterward, when Kentucky became a State, was elected a 
member of the Convention which formed the Constitution of 
1799. Thereafter he served in the Legislature several suc- 
cessive terms, during one of which he was elected Speaker. 

He enlisted as a volunteer in the war of 18 12, rose to 
the rank of Brigadier General, and was placed by Governor 
Shelby in command of 3,000 Kentucky troops sent to raise 
the siege of Fort Meigs, a task which he skillfully and gal- 
lantly accomplished. After the close of the war he retired 
to his princely estate in Madison County, where he died on 
October 31, 1828, In the seventy-second year of his age. 
To General Green Clay were born seven children, three sons 
and four daughters, of whom Brutus J. Clay, the father of 
the subject of this sketch, born In 1808, was the second son. 
Another son was Casslus M. Clay, soldier, diplomat and 
writer, who took a prominent part in the Anti-Slavery Con- 
troversy which ended in the Civil War. Brutus J. Clay was 

[ 9 ] 



educated at Centre College, settled in Bourbon County as 
a farmer, and was for many years one of the most successful 
stock-breeders in Kentucky. In 1840 he was elected a mem- 
ber of the Legislature, in 1853, President of the State Ag- 
ricultural Association, and in 1862, Member of Congress. 
He died in October, 1878, leaving by his first wife four chil- 
dren and by his second, Cassius M. Clay, Jr., who was born 
March 26, 1846, at Auvergne, Bourbon County, in the 
house in which he lived and died. 

Mr. Clay was prepared for college by B. B. Sayre, of 
Frankfort, one of the ablest and most successful teachers in 
Kentucky. He entered the Junior class of Yale College in 
1864, graduating in 1866 fifth in his class. He was a fine 
classical scholar, well versed in mathematics and more than 
ordinarily proficient in the natural science of the day. He 
was an indefatigable reader, an independent thinker, a pro- 
found student of History, Economics and Sociology, and 
flung himself eagerly into the controversial literature which 
rapidly grew up after the publication of Darwin's "Origin 
of Species." He was thoroughly versed in the logic and 
political economy of John Stuart Mill, and became an enthu- 
siastic adherent of the philosophical system of Herbert Spen- 
cer, based upon a modified Darwinian theory of Evolution. 
He had learned thoroughly the great lesson which he taught 
by precept and example, viz. : that the end of education is to 
teach man to think, to think clearly, to think quickly and to 
think accurately. 

After graduation Mr. Clay settled on his ancestral es- 
tate and applied himself to agriculture. But such a man 
could not long remain in seclusion. In 1871 he was elected 
to the Legislature, and at the end of his term was elected 
for a second term. From 1885 to 1889 he was a member 
of the State Senate, and in 1890 he was chosen delegate 
from Bourbon County to the Constitutional Convention. In 
1 89 1 he became a candidate for the Democratic nomination 
for Governor, but was defeated by the Railroad Interest, 

[ 10 ] 



and was again defeated for the nomination in 1895. This 
was his last appearance as a candidate for political office. 

In politics Mr. Clay was a Democrat of the Cleveland 
type, a firm believer in and an able advocate of the system of 
"checks and balances" provided for under the Constitution 
against the irresponsible rule of a majority. He was a con- 
stant advocate of a "Tariff for Revenue only," and of a 
sound fiscal policy, adhering to a gold basis. He held in just 
contempt the heresy of a double standard and treated with 
scorn the craze of "16 to i." He held that the great dan- 
ger of the future would be Communism and Socialism, and 
hence opposed all insidious efforts to break down the bar- 
riers which protect life and property through the gradual 
extension of Government monopoly in the field of govern- 
mental domain. 

One of the most conspicuous features of his character was 
his utter impartiality. This perhaps grew out of his strong 
sense of justice, his clear intuition of truth and his adherence 
to principle. No one ever suspected him of selfish or nar- 
row motives. He was charitable in his judgment of others, 
conservative, even-tempered and controlled by high ideals 
of life and of duty. He was simple in his tastes and wants, 
courageously cheerful in sorrow, reserved in business and 
private affairs, yet capable of strong and deep affection, 
standing steadfastly by his friends. During the later years 
of his life his health was precarious and required close atten- 
tion, but even thus, no duty was neglected and no obligation 
left unfulfilled. He was closely identified with the various 
agricultural and business enterprises of his native county. 
Only a few days before his death, though weak and just out 
of the hospital, he attended a meeting in Paris of an impor- 
tant association of which he was a member. His death 
occurred after a brief illness, November 27, 19 13. 

Mr. Clay was thrice married. ( i ) to Miss Sue E. Clay, 
who bore him two sons and two daughters. The sons, 
Junius B. and Samuel Henry, predeceased their father, the 

C 11 ] 



former dying at the age of 33 and the latter at the age of 22. 
Of the two daughters, Anne L. is the wife of W. Rodes 
Shackelford, of Richmond, and Sue E. the wife of Dr. Cyril 
Goodman, of Cairo, Egypt, where he has been in the service 
of the British Government for many years. (2) After the 
death of his first wife, June 6, 1880, Mr. Clay married 
October, 1882, Miss Pattie F. Lyman, who survived her 
marriage a little over a year, leaving a daughter, who died 
in infancy. (3) In December, 1888, Mr. Clay married 
Miss Mary Blythe Harris, of Madison County, who, with 
two sons, Cassius M. and John H., survive him. 

In the Legislature, as a member of the House of Repre- 
sentatives and as a member of the Senate, he made his pres- 
ence felt in no small degree. In every important measure 
which came before either body members were ere long able 
to anticipate on what side Mr. Clay would stand. His ex- 
tended reading and his profound knowledge of political 
philosophy gave him an easy mastery of principles, and his 
wide range of historical knowledge supplied him with abun- 
dant illustration. The writer, though never a member of 
either House of the General Assembly, has been for more 
than forty years more or less familiar with the personnel and 
calibre of both Senators and Representatives in successive 
Legislatures. During this period he has not known a mem- 
ber of either House the superior of Mr. Clay in a knowledge 
of parliamentary law, the rights and duties of citizenship, 
and the means by which these rights and duties may legiti- 
mately be maintained. He was familiar with the aggres- 
sive appearance of Socialism, Collectivism, Opportunism in 
France and Germany, in England and America. To com- 
bat these and hold them in check he held would in the near 
future be the chief concern and highest duty of all good citi- 
zens. He had no panacea for all political ills. He ti-usted 
to the growth of intelligence, the diffusion of learning and 
to the development of a sound political morality to supply 
the proper remedy in dealing with ail questions of govern- 

[ 12 ] 



ment and economic legislation as they arose. Saturated with 
the best thought of the greatest political economists, he fol- 
lowed none of them slavishly, but appropriated and applied 
what was best in each to the upbuilding and maintenance of 
the political and social fabric inherited from the founders of 
the Republic, In debate he was fair and courteous to an 
opponent, conceding all that might with propriety be yielded, 
but seizing the salient facts and driving them home with 
resistless logic. He invoked no adventitious trappings of 
oratory. He told a plain, straightforward tale, but when he 
sat down friends and opponents alike felt that his argument 
was the work of a thinker, fearlessly and cogently and con- 
vincingly spoken. In his public life, whether as a candi- 
date or lawmaker, his most noticeable asset was the convic- 
tion which the public had of his absolute candor, veracity 
and integrity and his scorn of meanness, prevarication and 
duplicity. Whether for you or against you, there he stood 
in the plenitude and panoply of a great man "to give the 
world assurance of a man." 

When the Constitutional Convention, to which Mr. Clay 
was a delegate, assembled in 1890, he was elected its Presi- 
dent. His great ability, his fine scholarship, his philosophic 
culture, his knowledge of law and his knowledge of men 
made his selection for that distinguished honor, when his 
candidacy became known, a foregone conclusion. His knowl- 
edge of legislative procedure and the fairness of his rulings, 
the impartiality shown in the composition and morale of his 
Committees, assured adequacy of treatment and due consid- 
eration of all the business which came before them. Ample 
opportunity was given for full and fair discussion of all meas- 
ures reported to the Convention through its Committees, 
while dilatory procedure was held in check. Great interests 
were involved. Educational, industrial, religious, moral, the 
reciprocal rights and duties of individuals and of corpora- 
tions, of capital and of labor. In all these a steady hand and 
a level head were required. And when the convention ad- 

[ 13 ] 



journed, the conviction prevailed that no speaker had ever 
presided over a dehberative body in America with more 
ability, integrity and efficiency than had Mr. Clay over the 
Constitutional Convention of 1890-91. 

In January, 1902, Mr. Clay was appointed a member 
of the Board of Trustees of the State University, in which 
capacity he served until June, 19 13, when he offered his 
resignation. During his period of service his broad and 
liberal education and his intimate knowledge of the edu- 
cational necessities of the State were of incalculable value 
to the Institution. His high character throughout the Com- 
monwealth, his well-known integrity and his knowledge of 
what a University should be, gave the public confidence in 
its upbuilding and usefulness. His constant effort was to 
promote economy and efficiency of administration and high 
standards of scholarship and of character. He considered 
it important to make scholars, but far more important to 
make men. 

In all the relations of public and private life Mr. Clay 
impressed those with whom he came in contact as a man 
able, upright, sincere and honorable, despising pretence and 
sham. He was just and considerate to all, with a large re- 
serve of force behind all he did and said. His constant aim 
was to discover fundamental principles and to build thereon. 

Mr. Clay was still in the prime of manhood and intel- 
lectual vigor when he died. His mind was clear and strong, 
his mental activities unimpaired, his conception of men and 
things clarified by experience. A well-rounded man, a great 
man, and above all a good man, his departure left a void 
which cannot readily be filled. The State University con- 
ferred upon him in 1909, in recognition of his worth, the 
honorary degree of LL.D., Doctor of Laws, and no honor 
ever conferred by the University was more deservedly be- 
stowed. 

The following appreciation of Mr. Clay appeared in the 
Louisville Post, November 29th, two days after his death : 

[ 14 ] 



"The death of Cassius M. Clay was announced yesterday. 
Mr. Clay has pursued an honorable course In public life 
in Kentucky. He was a member of the Legislature, Presi- 
dent of the Constitutional Convention, and always an active 
party leader. He was a man of high personal character 
with a thoroughly trained mind and with high standards of 
public conduct. Beyond all public office, Mr. Clay was 
interested as a private citizen in public affairs and exhibited 
the highest type of Kentuckian in private life. It is a long 
time since Mr. Clay occupied a public position or sought 
one, but in all these years he has been a loyal citizen, ad- 
vising his fellow citizens upon all matters of public con- 
cern. It is men like Mr. Clay in the private walks of life 
who direct and control public opinion. It is to this tribunal 
that every cause must go for final decision. 

"The death of such a man trained in the schools and 
the active callings of life is a distinct loss to the State." 

To this estimate may be added the action taken by the 
Board of Trustees of the State University upon the resig- 
nation of Mr. Clay, June, 19 13, and the resolutions adopted 
at the mid-winter meeting following : 

"Mr. Stoll suggested that the resolutions concerning the 
death of Mr. Cassius M. Clay be taken up at this time, 
and they were read by Dr. James K. Patterson as follows: 

"It is with sincere regret that the Board of Trustees 
of the State University of Kentucky record the severance 
of their official relations with Hon. Cassius M. Clay by his 
voluntary resignation of the office of Trustee which he has 
held by appointment for nearly twelve consecutive years. 
His eminent ability, his fine education — broad, liberal, thor- 
ough — his high character for honor and integrity, his dis- 
tinguished reputation for patriotism and practical statesman- 
ship, and his unswerving loyalty to the best interests of the 
Commonwealth, all combined to make him a Kentuckian and 
an American citizen of the highest type. During his long 
connection with the Board of Trustees, Mr. Clay gave dig- 

C 15 ] 



nity and prestige to the proceedings. His straightforward- 
ness, his manliness, his well defined opinions upon organiza- 
tion and policy, his utter impartiality, and the energy and 
earnestness and intelligent breadth of grasp with which he 
expressed his convictions never failed to make a deep im- 
pression on his colleagues. By all he said and did the 
conviction was borne in upon all — here is a just man and 
a great, in whom justice and truth are the impelling and 
controlling elements of his being. 

"During the forty-eight years of its existence, the State 
College — now the State University of Kentucky — had no 
more distinguished member of its Academic Board, no more 
intelligent and impartial director of its organization and 
management, no more scholarly guide in framing and co- 
ordinating its policies, and no more impartial and just arbiter 
in differences which emerged in relation to its activities 
and control. 

"The untimely death of this distinguished man adds 
poignancy to the regret felt because of his voluntary severance 
of his relations with us. Not the State University only, 
but his State and the Nation are distinctly poorer to-day 
because of the passing of such a man. In the language 
of the Latin poet whom he loved so well, 

"Quis desiderlo sit pudor aut modus 
Tarn cari capitis?" 

"When Milton bewailed the untimely death of Lycidas, 
Lycidas was young. Mr. Clay, though somewhat advanced 
in years was young in spirit, full of intellectual vitality and 
vigor, in full accord with all the efforts to advance and 
elevate mankind. In him was youth ripened by experience, 
but youth still. With equal propriety, then, and with equal 
sorrow and regret we may paraphrase the language of 
Milton: 

"Lycidas is dead, dead while in his prime. 
Who would not 'mourn' for Lycidas?" 

[ 16 ] 



SPEECHES 

AND 

WRITTEN ARTICLES. 



NOTE 
By C. M. Clay, III. 



It was Father's wish that certain of his written articles anH 
speeches be preserved in book form for his friends and fam ly The 
selection of these articles follows a list made out in hisTwn hand 
wm.ng Bnefly stated, the purpose of this volume is to pr^erve his 
ideas and opm.ons on various questions of public interest 

.r.KV'^''''"J'"?' u' 'If''''' '">' ^^'^'"'^ convictions during a consid- 
erable penod of his hfe, this book may be said to form a certain 

to^pubt Su'e^^^'^' " '' ^'^^^' ^ ''-'' °^ ^'^ P-'-" - -fe^e^ 
The Commencement theme at Yale is included, as an earlv soeci 

rnen of h.s thought and writing. A few notes of explanat on have 

been mserted where thought necessary. 

Grateful acknowledgment is due' to Mr. Wm. L. Yerkes for 

his mvaluable assistance to the writer in the preparation of thes^ 

Te^prTs ei"to'prrr^ ''TV ''''' '°^^'- ^^^ '^^ ZrL^Z 
whlch'TrmsL prda^:."" ^^ ^"^""" ''' ''' ^'^^-P'^-^ '^'^^^ 

Paris, Ky., Sept. 10, 1914. 



THE PERMANENCE OF ENGLAND. 

Oration Delivered at Yale During the Cornmencement 
Exercises of the Class of 1866. 

If we were required to determine whether a certain build- 
ing would continue to exist with immunity from the ravages 
of time, before answering in the affirmative we should first 
examine its foundations and the materials of which it was 
constructed; we should see that no rock in the foundation 
was cnished; that the walls were not racked by the settling 
of the superstructure, but made more firm and compact; 
we should see that the materials were hard and lasting in 
their very nature and composition. So, in answering the 
question whether England will remain permanently a great 
power, we shall first carefully examine the foundations of 
her greatness; we shall see if they are firm and stable, if 
they are resting on the eternal rock of justice and right. 

Her colonies, commerce, situation, institutions, govern- 
ment, and the character of her people are the only points 
necessary for us to examine to justify ourselves in concluding 
that England is a great permanent power. The character 
of her people is known to all; active, self-reliant, and perse- 
vering, they are the leading race of the globe. We can 
form no better idea of this character than by mentioning 
a few of the results wrought out by manly independence 
and perseverance. Here first Civil Liberty in the annals 
of Modern Europe came in contact with Despotism, and 
wrested the scepter from his grasp. Here first Free In- 
quiry defied with impunity the dominion of Catholicism and 
the spiritual absolutism of the Pope. Here first a Shake- 
speare wrote, with lifelike accuracy, of human nature in all 
its phases and conditions; and a Milton sang of a holy and 

[ 21 ] 



sublime theme with fit power and majesty. Here the human 
mind lit up, with greater brilliancy than ever before, the 
vistas and intricacies of Speculative Morality, and in physical 
science made manifest the before mysterious, but now simple, 
laws of nature. Here first were guarantees of personal 
rights demanded and obtained; and slowly, but surely, were 
raised those bulwarks of Civil Liberty by which the hum- 
blest subject, in the maintenance of the right, can safely 
defy the King. Here finally have revolutions bloodlessly 
run their course, without destroying any of those precious 
guarantees, or radically changing the form of government. 
In the future, as in the past, the English character will be 
the corner stone of her greatness; for its stability and con- 
servatism are not decaying, but progressing. 

Let us now examine her institutions, which are our pride 
as well as England's. The trial by jury is free from execu- 
tive interference. No Star Chambers or extraordinary 
courts are tolerated. The prerogatives of the King are defi- 
nitely defined, and more closely hedged in. The elective 
franchise is more widely exercised. In fine, her institutions 
are constantly becoming more elaborated by internal, and 
not external, action, and are becoming better adapted to 
secure and preserve the rights and liberties of a free people. 

In her government we see this same approximation to 
right. A few years ago imprisonment and other outrages 
were frequently resorted to by the government and tolerated 
by the people. They are so no longer. Then Irish wrongs 
were fearful realities. Now a much wiser and more humane 
policy is exercised toward Ireland. Her colonies are better 
governed. Her internal policy is less corrupt. Private 
rights are more carefully respected. Broader and more com- 
prehensive views guide the helm of State. Again there is 
something in the very nature of the English Government 
that essentially renders it permanent. No exclusive prin- 
ciple has the predominance. Monarchy is represented In the 
person of the King; Aristocracy in the House of Lords; and 

[ 22 ] 



Democracy in the House of Commons. This complex na- 
ture, the result of compromise, destroys radicalism of every 
species, and renders impossible opportunities for destructive 
revolutions. 

The situation of England is such that it is impossible 
that she extend her territory by continental conquest, even 
if the European system of balance of power did not prevent 
it. The extent of her territory is incompatible with a larger 
population; but yet the very fact of isolation secures her 
from conquest by a foreign foe, and the small extent of her 
territor}^ guarantees the purity of the race, both by prevent- 
ing immigration and necessitating emigration from the more 
worthless classes. 

Much can be said of her colonies and commerce. Her 
colonies are now more extensive and opulent than at the 
time British officials administered justice in the United Col- 
onies of America; for, although the grand "Republic of the 
West" has long since broken the ties that bound her to 
the mother country, she has founded in the East an empire 
no less durable and more opulent than that of Alexander. 
She has more shipping than in the most glorious era of the 
past. The very fact of more extensive colonies and greater 
commerce is a strong presumption that the climax of colo- 
nial and commercial greatness is not yet reached. We will 
not, however, be satisfied with mere presumptive evidence, 
for it is too liable to deceive. There was a presumption 
that Rome under Augustus, as she was at the acme of her 
glory and a conquered world lay at her feet, would con- 
tinue to direct the destinies of nations, yet scarcely four 
centuries saw her lying at the mercy of the barbarian. 

It is affirmed that as the world becomes more civilized 
nations are more impatient of external rule, and therefore 
in course of time England's colonies will become independent 
nations. We deny the conclusion — we deny it because we 
believe it false. So long as the ruling nation is more intel- 
ligent, better able to defend the colony from foes, to pre- 

[ 23 ] 



serve order, and prevent civil commotion, to regulate trade 
and punish offenders against the law of nations; so long 
as the colony is not embittered by some great mistake in 
policy, as in the case of America, it will be for the interest 
of the colony to carefully preserve its relations with the 
mother country. Is there any prospect that Indian civiliza- 
tion will in years to come compete with Anglican? Again, 
the most intelligent and powerful class in all the colonies is 
composed of English emigrants, men who love their country, 
take pride in its past history and esteem it a privilege that 
they belong to the empire. If independent, they will be 
subject to insult, foreign domination and civil commotion. 
As members of the empire, the British power avenges their 
wrongs; and they possess far more privileges than the Ro- 
man could boast when he exclaimed with pride, "I am a 
Roman citizen." 

But suppose for sake of argument we grant the conclu- 
sion — Cannot England in this case connect herself with the 
colonies by ties of interest and gratitude? Cannot this 
connection promote her prosperity fully as much as the 
present relation? It seems to us very feasible for England, 
even if she cannot hold them as colonies, thus to estabhsh 
throughout the world independent nations, bearing the im- 
press of her civilization, having incorporated in their gov- 
ernments those principles of Anglican liberty which nineteen 
centuries of Christian progress have but barely evolved and 
matured; firm allies to defend her in danger; the develop- 
ment of whose resources cannot but promote the trade of 
England; the noblest and proudest monuments of the indus- 
try and perseverance of that little island whose past history 
has been a most happy realization of the favorite maxim 
of one of her most illustrious sons, ''Knowledge is power." 

We see no reason why her trade should decline. Her 
people are a commercial people both by disposition and situ- 
ation. The result of having greater rivals in the future 
will only be greater activity and energy. 

[ 24 ] 



Thus we see her institutions made more firm and sacred 
by time; her government less corrupt, more nearly based on 
principles of right and justice; her situation, taken in con- 
junction with her inherent strength, such as to defy foreign 
invasion and conquest; the character of her people having 
been constantly disciplined by struggle and suffering, ap- 
proaching a more perfect state; her colonies and commerce, 
the one adding materially to her prosperity, whether as 
colonies or independent nations, the other not only sur- 
passing that of all other countries, but a blessing to human- 
ity, as it makes the most civilized and religious people on 
the face of the globe the principal agent of the Creator in 
spreading civilization and religion. Before decline, the seeds 
of dissolution must be planted. We ask if this approxima- 
tion to right in every sphere is the forerunner of decay? 
If so, then our ideas of right, morality, and the workings 
of Providence are essentially wrong. It has been said that 
the prosperity of England began to decline when continental 
conquest was abandoned, when France was given up by John 
Lackland; we deem it a most fortunate circumstance both for 
her dignity and independence. We are told that every na- 
tion in the past has risen only to decline. We admit it. But 
we claim that the adoption and faithful observance of the 
precepts and spirit of the Christian religion have added a 
new condition to the problem of nations. We claim that in 
the future particular nations and civilizations will not be 
brilliant meteors that rise only to disappear, and make more 
hideous the darkness that follows; but great planets that 
appear during the whole night, and at the dawn of the 
perfect day, only dimmed by that great luminary from which 
they derive their radiance. We claim that these Christian 
nations shall disappear only when the lines that separate 
them one from another shall fade away in the brighter glory 
of the universal kingdom of perfect right and justice. 



ON THE CONVENTIONAL INTEREST LAW.^ 

"We publish this morning the speech of Hon. Cassias M. Clay, 
Jr., on the bill presented to the Legislature to repeal the ten per cent, 
interest {Conventional Interest) law. Mr. Clay's speech will repay 
careful perusal. As a specimen of close reasoning, logical deduction 
and philosophical itivestigation, it is, perhaps, unequaled by any speech 
made this winter at Frankfort. Mr. Clay made the bill now pend- 
ing the issue in his canvass last summer, and his effort shows that he 
has given much thought to the subject." — Old clipping, presumably 
from a Louisville newspaper. 

I wish simply to make an argument on this question 
without any attempt at rhetorical display, without any ap- 
peal to prejudice. I will say in the first place that I consider 
this question from the standpoint of a low actual rate of 
interest. I consider a low actual rate of interest much more 
conducive to the progress and prosperity of the country than 
a high rate. My policy would be to pass such laws, grounded 
on a thorough knowledge of the laws of trade, as would 
conduce to the furnishing of money to the borrower at the 
lowest possible rate. But I must say that I differ widely 
with the gentleman from Marion as to the means by which 
such result is to be obtained. He thinks that it can be done 

'This speech was made in the Kentucky Legislature at Frankfort in 1871 
against the repeal of what was known as the Conventional Interest or ten per cent. 
Interest Law. As the statutes have since been changed, it may be well to briefly 
restate the issue. The Conventional Interest Law, then of comparatively recent 
adojition, allowed any interest to be charged up to 10%, provided the rate be 
specified in a written agreement between borrower and lender, otherwise, and if 
no rate be specified, the lender could collect 6% interest on the principal and no 
more. Advocates of the repeal of this law favored a return to the old laws of 
Kentucky on the subject, which fixed a legal rate of six per cent, and provided 
that, if a higher rate be charged to the borrower, all interest on the principal should 
be liable to forfeiture. These old laws, which are several times referrecf to, were 
never rigidly enforced. The main reason given for readopting them was an attempt 
to curb by legislative interference the high rates of interest then current. In 1871, 
eight, ten and twelve per cent, interest was not uncommon in Kentucky. The 
National Government was paying 7% on some of its indebtedness; in fact, all 
business was reaping the bad effects of a depreciated currency and a consequent 
excessive speculation. 

C. M. Clay's speech on this subject was probably his first speech of length in 
public life. 

[ 27 ] 



by restriction and penalties. I believe that by allowing the 
laws of trade to work untrammeled by restrictions and penal- 
ties we shall reach the desired result. That is, I believe in 
the free trade principle, so far as the State of Kentucky is 
concerned, being applied to money as it is to other com- 
modities and services. I claim that the law of supply and 
demand does in the main, in spite of legislative interference, 
control the actual rate; that it is right that it should; and 
that, whether right or wrong, the tendency of the free trade 
principle is to lower the actual rate of money. I claim that 
the only way in which usury laws affect the actual rate is 
as they affect the supply of money to be loaned or the de- 
mand, Is as they affect the security or insecurity of the in- 
vestment. I further claim that restriction has the tendency 
to diminish the supply comparatively with the demand; has 
the tendency to make the profits of the investment on account 
of the penalties of the usury laws more uncertain ; and con- 
sequently, the only effect of usury laws is a tendency to raise 
the rate of interest in just the proportion that such laws are 
more stringent. And let me right here say that I am in 
favor of the abolition of all usui*y laws and that I only 
favor the present law in preference to an eight or six per 
cent, law, because I consider it a step in the present condition 
of public opinion on this question necessary to be taken before 
the free-trade principle can be carried out, and because I 
consider It as the nearest approach to that principle that is 
now practicable. First as to the justice of the free-trade 
principle. All trade is an exchange of services. I now lay 
down the principle that the loaning of money is a service 
rendered whose value arises in the same way and Is con- 
trolled by the same laws as that of any other service ren- 
dered or commodity sold. The money-lender comes into 
the market offering to the public a valuable service, whose 
price is and must be regulated by the same laws as that of 
any other service — that Is, by the law of supply and de- 
mand. When the supply of available money to be loaned 

[ 28 ] 



Is small and the demand great, the rate will be high; and 
vice versa, when the demand is small and supply large, the 
rate will be low. Although it may not at first be apparent, 
still when we closely investigate, the loaning of money is a 
service rendered exactly on the same basis, so far as value 
is concerned, as all other services in the great domain of 
exchange. That a man should receive some compensation 
for loaning money is apparent. The money is his own 
property. He could use it to gratify his own tastes and 
desires, or he could use it in the field of production, and 
there realize a profit on his investment. In this last case 
it plays just as an important and necessary part as labor or 
brains. Now it is too evident for argument that if a man 
forego the gratification of his desires or forbear by the loan- 
ing of his money to realize the profit which a productive 
effort would yield, he is entitled to pay or to compensation 
for his forbearance. I further claim that the only and true 
criterion of the value of this service rendered is the price it 
obtains in the market; that when the amount of services to be 
rendered in this way is great and demand small, the rate 
will be low and vice versa. 

As usury laws are founded on the fallacy that to take 
interest is wrong, and the greater the interest the greater 
the wrong, we will further illustrate the justice and equity 
of taking Interest. There are a great many individuals of 
energy and determination who, without money, would be 
unable to carry on their business, but are enabled, by paying 
interest on money, to realize above and beyond the rate 
paid such a percentage as amply compensates them for their 
trouble, and which amounts to far more than their personal 
exertions unaided by capital could possibly command. To 
say that the capitalist does not do a service to these men 
is absurd. 

No — the loaning of money is as much service to a man 
as labor or any other service, and the market will properly 
and justly discriminate in regard to the value of this service. 

[ 29 ] 



It is no more an accommodation to the capitalist than to the 
borrower, and vice versa. I ask what reason is there for the 
Government to come in and say you shall not make the best 
bargain you can for yourself; to say that you shall pay a 
certain per cent., and no more, whether the loanable value 
of money be low or high? It is a pernicious and harmful 
interference with the rights of the individual; it is a poor 
compliment to the intelligence of the individual that, in 
regard to all other commodities he may have free trade, but 
in regard to all money he is not capable to take care of his 
own interest, and must pay only a certain per cent. 

The gentleman may say that the supply of money is 
limited, and consequently the rate might become excessively 
high. The uniformity of the supply especially fits it for 
its place as a medium of exchange and prevents a great 
scarcity or surplus, and consequently a great variation in its 
value. But ev^en grant the premise of the gentleman; still, 
as the State of Kentucky cannot control the supply or de- 
mand, as it cannot increase the bulk of coin or of the cur- 
rency, it is folly on its part to try to control and lower the 
rate by usury laws, since the tendency of such law is to in- 
crease the rate. I admit that it is very proper to have a 
legal rate in the absence of written agreement. 

One moment now, to illustrate the justice of the free- 
trade principle and the statement that the law of supply 
and demand controls in the main the rate under all circum- 
stances. As I have said before, if I can prov^e the policy and 
expediency of the free-trade principle, then I justify the 
nearest practicable approach to it. Now for examples : In 
England, where statesmanship is as enlightened and as free 
from demagogism as anywhere else in the world. Parliament 
has done away with usury laws, seeing their folly, and that 
they do not accomplish the end for which they were in- 
tended. Money is nowhere cheaper. Why? Because there 
the supply is greater compared with the demand than any- 
where else. In Massachusetts the Legislature has done away 

[ 30 ] 



with usur)' laws, and the average loanable value of money 
there is cheaper than in any State of the Union. As we come 
West we find that the rate increases, be the usury laws what 
they may. In Kentucky and Ohio we find money worth lo 
per cent.; in Illinois, lo to 15 ; in Missouri and the far West, 
from 15 to 20 per cent. And why? Just because the supply 
compared with the demand diminishes. At no time in the 
history of the past do we find the rate of money higher 
than when the Jews were persecuted and imprisoned on 
account of usurious practices, when the whole principal 
was put in jeopardy if more than the legal rate was 
charged. 

Any law that is wise and expedient must work well, being 
rigidly enforced. 

The usury laws are never rigidly enforced, but let us see 
what would be the effect of a rigid enforcement of your six 
or eight per cent, usury laws. What would be the result in 
regard to the borrower? Here is a man without sufficient 
means to properly carry on his business. With capital he 
may clear 15 per cent. Is it right that he should not be 
allowed to borrow at above 6 per cent., when at that rate 
he cannot borrow a dollar, the surplus capital being sent to 
other markets? Is it right to cut this man out of this profit 
to which he should be entitled? Is it not a grievous wrong 
to him? But my opponents will say that men will borrow 
at too high a rate for their own good. This is against the 
natural law. Money will generally be borrowed at those 
rates at which it can be advantageously used, for otherwise 
the demand will be less, and consequently the rate will fall. 
This matter properly regulates itself. To illustrate: Take 
the extreme case where all the surplus capital in a commu- 
nity is held by a few capitalists. They have a monopoly 
of the money market. Say the borrower negotiates a loan 
at 8 per cent. He uses it in production or in some other 
way, and realizes only 7 per cent, on the capital invested. 
Now, as a matter of course, he and others whose venture 

[ 31 ] 



turned out the same way will forbear to borrow rather than 
lose or even not make sufficient money to pay them for their 
services over and above the cost of the capital used. Right 
here, then, the supply being the same, the demand becomes 
less and the rate will conform itself to the business of the 
community, for the capitalist will loan at a less rate rather 
than that a portion of his capital should lie idle. 

Now, to illustrate the injustice of the usury laws, let 
us for a moment suppose the opposite case. The business 
man or manufacturer borrows at 8 per cent. Say he real- 
izes 20 per cent., to make an extreme case. Would you 
say to this man, borrow your money at 6 per cent, or borrow 
none at all? For the rigid enforcement of your old usury 
laws would now amount to prohibition. He can afford prob- 
ably to pay 10 per cent.; it may be even an accommodation 
for him to be enabled to borrow at that rate. 

As I have said before, to say that a man shall not borrow 
unless he borrows at 6 per cent, or below is an injurious 
and pernicious interference of the State with the affairs of 
the individual, considered from the borrower's standpoint. 
To illustrate again: Here is an old man who cannot pro- 
ductively use his capital; here the young man who can, by 
his energy and business qualities, use this money to the best 
advantage and make a good profit. You fix your rate below 
the actual value of money. You thereby say to these par- 
ties, you shall not strike your own bargain. If you rigidly 
enforce your usury laws, you force the capital to be sent 
where it will command its full loanable value. 

Recollect, gentlemen, I am arguing now on the suppo- 
sition that the usury laws are rigidly enforced. Now, let us 
consider what would be the results of a rigid enforcement 
of your old usury laws on the general prosperity and mate- 
rial progress of your State. Your money would be used 
to develop the resources of other States. Your borrowers 
would be unable to negotiate the loans necessary to carry 
on business. Your enterprises would to a corresponding 

[ 32 ] 



extent languish and die. Your coal and Iron mines and 
your manufactories, wherever credit was required in order 
to run them, would cease; the coal and iron mines to give up 
their rich treasures; the manufactories to yield the finished 
commodity. Capital, as fast as it accumulated, if it could 
not be employed by its actual owners in developing our 
physical resources, would leave the State to find more profit- 
able investment. The capital that we need from other States 
in order to build our railroads and establish our manufac- 
tories would be excluded and kept away. But, gentlemen, 
usury laws are never, and never will, be generally enforced. 
They are only partially enforced. What are the effects of 
their partial enforcement? This one point should condemn 
them. The man who is disposed to act rascally gets the 
benefit, while the honest man always pays what he agrees to 
pay. The honest man not only pays the actual value of his 
money, but an additional amount to compensate the loaners 
for the repudiation by those less honest, or in other words 
they pay insurance to the capitalist on his profits. Before 
I go on with my argument in this direction, I will expose 
the fallacy upon which the governmental interference is 
founded. It was formerly supposed that governments could 
fix the value of money, and consequently its loanable value. 
By value of money I mean its general power of purchasing 
services or commodities. 

I say that the proposition that governments can arbi- 
trarily fix the value of money is fallacious; and also that 
they can fix its actual loanable value is an absurdity. For 
in each case the value, as all values do, varies by the law of 
supply and demand at the particular time. Governments 
can fix the denominations of money as they can fix the num- 
ber of pounds in a bushel of rye, but they can no more con- 
trol the absolute value in one case than they can in the other. 
I use value in the true sense of purchasing power. 

That even gold and silver vary in value, though less 
than other things on account of durability and uniformity 

[ 33 ] 



of supply, many historical facts substantiate. Thus, 300 
years ago, it is calculated these metals were worth from 3 
to 5 times their present value. Considerable variations in 
their value took place when Europeans first conquered Mex- 
ico and South America. It is calculated that silver then de- 
preciated in the ratio of 3 to i. Again, when California 
first threw into the gold market a large amount of that 
precious metal and gave reasonable expectation of a much 
greater supply, gold depreciated considerably. That gov- 
ernments cannot make money and fix its value, abundant facts 
show. The Continental money had on the five-dollar bill 
the government stamp for five dollars; still in a short time, 
because in spite of the governmental decree such money was 
not worth more, it took five thousand of such dollars to buy 
five dollars in gold. The Government of the United States 
alloys its coin, and what is its effect? The moment we trade 
with an Englishman, the moment we go outside of the field 
of exchanges made in our depreciated coin — for just as we 
alloy we depreciate — the moment we trade, as I said before, 
with an Englishman, he discounts our coin just in proportion 
to the alloy; and so on we might multiply instances indefi- 
nitely. What we wish to show is that legislation cannot 
directly make or alter values. One illustration now to show 
that the slightest differences of real value will show them- 
selves in spite of legislation. In 1792, in our coinage, we 
made our gold worth just fifteen times as much as our silver. 
What was the effect? That gold rapidly went out of cir- 
culation on account of over-valuation of silver by law. To 
correct this and again put gold in circulation. Congress made 
the proportion i to 16, but this over-valued gold, and silver 
rapidly was exported. To keep both metals in circulation, 
it was finally determined to debase the silver coin and make 
it legal tender for amounts no greater than five dollars. 
This illustration forcibly shows the potency of the natural 
laws that control value in spite of legislation. You find that 
even gold and silver, which God seemed expressly to have 

[ 34 ] 



made for money on account of their durability and uni- 
formity of supply, do vary and assert their value in spite 
of legislation. 

Now that we have shown that the absolute value of gold 
and silver do vary in spite of legislation, there can be no 
basis on which to found usury laws. For we have already 
shown in theory and practice that the actual rate should and 
does vary according to the law of supply and demand and 
compensation. 

Let us now have a few words in relation to the message 
of Governor Wise,^ which is so much relied upon by the 
advocates of repeal. And let me remark that I never saw 
so many fallacies in such a short space. It would take too 
long a time to pick up each fallacious statement and answer 
it in detail, so I will only expose the main fallacy, upon 
which the others depend. Money is not only a relative, for 
I have shown it is not an absolute standard of value, but also 
a medium of exchange. It is not only the measure, but the 
thing measured. Your yardstick is but a measure, and, after 
you ascertain the number of yards in your cloth, its uses 
are ended, and you pay for your cloth with your medium 
of exchange. If money was only a measure of v^alue, as a 
yardstick is, and not a medium of exchange — that is, if 
you only estimated, by means of the denominations of money, 
the value between the commodities to be exchanged — much 
that Wise says might be true. But even yardsticks have 
value for the particular purposes for which they are used, 
and that value is controlled by the supply and demand for 
yardsticks. 

Money is not only a comparative standard of value, but 
a medium of exchange. It has two functions : one to ascer- 
tain the amount due, the other to satisfy the debt owed. 
Not only do you estimate you owe the merchant for his 
cloth with money, but with it as medium of exchange or as 
a generalized service you pay him for it. He sells to you 

* Henry A. Wise, Governor of Virginia, 1856-1860. 

[ 35 ] 



the cloth for the money; you sell to him the money for the 
cloth. It is a clear case of value. The service rendered 
is mutual — the value of each is estimated in the other, and 
by law you can control neither one nor the other. Wise falls 
into the same fallacy as many others who have not carefully 
and accurately studied the fundamental principles of political 
economy. He considers actual value to pertain only to com- 
modities, whereas value is the relation between services. The 
lawyer is as much entitled to compensation for services as 
the farmer for produce. Again, value does not depend upon 
labor, for if a person finds on his grounds a magnificent dia- 
mond that has lain where found since creation, does the fact 
that it cost no labor in the least diminish its value? No. 
Why does that diamond have value? Because the person 
who has it in his possession is in a position to do a service 
to the community. And what fixes the value of that service? 
The market, the law of supply and demand. Now the mo- 
ment value arises in money, it matters not on what account, 
whether the Government has given it special privileges or 
not, from the fact that it can do anybody any service, that 
value is determined by what the public will give for that 
service. This reasoning applies still stronger to the rate. 
But to make the case still stronger, grant that Wise is right 
in his reasoning. He thinks that the rate should be low, in 
the interest of borrowers. I claim I have the same interest 
at heart. As the State of Kentucky cannot affect favorably 
the supply, for it cannot make legal tenders, diminish the 
risk or control the demand, it cannot reduce the rate fixed 
by the free-trade principle. In reality, as I have shown and 
will further show, usury laws have the tendency to increase 
the rate. So that even under this consideration of the ques- 
tion he would be mistaken as to the means by which his 
objects are to be obtained. 

Wise claims that money has many advantages over many 
things, and therefore its rate should be controlled by law. 
Grant that it has many advantages, and what does it prove ? 

[ 36 ] 



Advantages, whether given by law or nature, have to be 
paid for by the person who buys the commodity. Here is 
a horse faster and finer than any other horse about. Is this 
any reason why his price should be limited by law? The 
man who in the first place purchased the horse had, in all 
probability, to pay for these advantages; and so in regard 
to money. The man who buys money (for money must be 
bought like other things) pays for the advantages that money 
may have over other things. The law of compensation is 
just as potent here as elsewhere. I will not detain the House 
longer with this document of the Governor's. 

I will come now to the elaboration of the point that 
free-trade is evidently in favor of the borrower, although 
the opposite idea certainly dictated the usury laws. Your 
money is kept at home. There being no risk, the capitalist 
can afford to lend at a less rate of interest. Your money 
staying at home, the supply becomes greater compared with 
the demand, and consequently the rate less. Again, if the 
rate be higher than elsewhere, money is brought into the 
State, and this has a tendency to reduce the rate. I here 
overthrow the fallacy upon which the usury laws are based; 
for their advocates assume that the real rate will be what- 
ever the Government fixes as the legal rate. The legal and 
actual rate have no logical connection, unless we might say 
the more stringent the usury laws, other things being equal, 
the greater the actual rate. Gentlemen will say that our old 
usury laws drove no money out of the State. I know very 
little about the private business of individuals, but I have 
been told by two responsible parties that two individuals 
in my county, who loaned a very large amount out of the 
State, upon the passage of the law brought it back and 
loaned it at home. Gentlemen say that they know of no 
money that the present law has brought into the State. I 
am informed by a bank officer that one insurance company 
brought into the State and loaned out upon the passage 
of the law $350,000. 

[ 37 ] 



Gentlemen say that they never heard of much money 
being sent out of the State on account of usury^ laws. Re- 
adopt your old six per cent, law, and let it be rigidly en- 
forced, and I can assure these gentlemen that they will have 
the exhibition that to them is so novel. The true reason 
why not more money was sent out of the State was that 
your old usury laws were never rigidly enforced. This, and 
this alone, was the reason. 

Experience demonstrates the truth of the conclusion at 
which a logical consideration of this subject enforces us to 
arrive. Almost every country has had at one time or an- 
other stringent usury laws, but the progress of liberality and 
enlightenment, and a more just appreciation of God's laws 
to regulate well and wisely the field of exchange without in- 
justice to any class, have removed to a considerable extent, 
or altogether, the restrictions of usury laws. We are getting 
more and more alive to the fact that man's interference by 
legislation in these questions is more apt to work injustice 
than justice; that we in our folly encourage by this legislation 
the very result we would avoid. 

Now for a few minutes to answer two objections made by 
the advocates of the repeal : That the passage of the ten 
per cent, law raised the rate in Kentucky; that it has depre- 
ciated the value of our lands. First, that it has raised the 
rate. I believe if the law had not passed the rate would 
now be higher. Any person with any knowledge of the laws 
of political economy could expect no less. I claim that the 
law of supply and demand in the main controls the rate. 
What do we see in regard to the actual supply and demand ? 
In the first place, in regard to the supply, the currency, in- 
stead of being inflated, has been contracted. Gold and silver 
are not in circulation — one of the necessary evils of an ir- 
redeemable currency. On the other hand, the demand has 
increased tremendously. During the last three years there 
has been great progress in railroad matters. Great amounts 
have been borrowed for railroad construction. 

[ 38 ] 



The Chesapeake and Ohio, the Louisville and Nashville, 
etc., have been heavy borrowers in the market. 

Mining has taken a fresh impetus. Furnaces and forges 
have been erected all along up the Ohio River; and so on 
in other departments of business. 

Again. We are reaping the penalties of an undue and 
excessive speculation, which was stimulated and brought into 
life by the superabundance of an irredeemable and depreci- 
ated currency. That currency has been contracted and appre- 
ciated as compared with gold — and the debts incurred, if 
unpaid, now represent in our present currency much more in 
value than they did when incurred; or, in other words, prod- 
ucts and commodities from this cause have shrunk in value 
as compared with these debts, so that men are unable to 
pay them. All these causes have increased the demand for 
money. What is the inevitable result of these facts? That 
the rate should be higher, although the tendency of the ten 
per cent, law itself was to lower the rate. 

Let me illustrate the workings of usury laws in this and 
other cases. 

Suppose the State of Kentucky should pass a law that 
wheat should not sell at over fifty cents a bushel; and if a 
person sold at over fifty cents a bushel he should forfeit the 
surplus to the purchaser. Suppose that wheat is worth $i 
in Cincinnati. What would be the effect of the law? Either 
that no wheat would be sold at home and all sent to Cin- 
cinnati, or else, if wheat was sold at home, which would be 
the case if wheat was needed, it would be sold at the Cin- 
cinnati price, minus the freight, plus an additional percentage 
to compensate the seller for the risk he ran that the pur- 
chaser would come back upon him for the surplus over fifty 
cents. And, again, if not as much wheat was produced in 
Kentucky as needed, this law would have the tendency to 
diminish the supply by throwing obstacles in the way of its 
importation, and consequently would increase the price. Sup- 
pose, furthermore, an enlightened Legislature, seeing the 

[ 39] 



folly of such a law, should repeal 't. Or suppose, to make 
an analogous case, immediately after the passage of the law, 
the price of wheat in Cincinnati, on account of a short crop, 
should rise to $1.50, and have the tendency to reduce the 
price at home, still wheat would go up to the Cincinnati 
price, minus freight, if more wheat was made in Kentucky 
than consumed, and vice versa to the Cincinnati price plus 
freight. This illustrates the working of the interest law and 
the present state of the money market. 

Now, gentlemen, one word of advice how to reduce the 
rate of interest. We must curb the wild and reckless specu- 
lative spirit of the present time and do business on a safer 
and more secure basis. Less money must be borrowed. A 
few words in regard to the depreciation of land. Gentlemen 
say the ten per cent, law has depreciated the value of our 
lands. I admit land has depreciated, but not so much as 
some suppose, because the currency as compared with the 
gold has considerably appreciated. Grant the premise and 
what are the causes of its depreciation? But before I give 
my causes, I will state that lands in other surrounding States 
have depreciated as much, or more, than they have in Ken- 
tucky. I know of a farm in Illinois, to take an instance, 
that cannot now be sold for much over half what it could 
five years ago. In western Virginia lands that five years 
ago actually sold for over one hundred dollars can now 
hardly find a purchaser at any price. Let me ask the advo- 
cates of the repeal to explain the still greater depreciation 
of land in other States where the interest laws have not been 
molested. But to return. What are the real causes of this 
depreciation? First, the farm products have diminished in 
value. Our cattle market in Bourbon is entirely controlled 
by the New York market, outside the influence of our laws; 
our grain and hog market by the Cincinnati market, also 
outside; our mule market by the Southern and Eastern mar- 
ket, also outside the influence of our laws; our other products 
are fed to one or the other of the above classes of live 

C 40 ] 



stock. So you see our profits are not affected by the ten 
per cent, law; but, nevertheless, our profits have diminished 
in value, and as a matter of course this, to a certain extent, 
has depreciated the value of land. 

Again, the railroad progress in the West has brought a 
great many cheap lands, just as rich as ours, just or nearly 
as accessible to market, in close competition with us. Again, 
the unreliability of our labor has made irksome and dis- 
agreeable the business of farming. The effect of this is to 
throw a great many lands into the market. The supply of 
lands to be sold increasing and the demand diminishing, the 
price has depreciated. These and other causes have pro- 
duced the depreciation in the value of lands. 

Many of the causes are the same that caused land to 
depreciate 50 per cent, in less than twelve months during 
the stringent times following the panic of 1847. O"^ of 
the principal causes of the panic was the rapid conversion of 
the currency in the loan market into fixed capital by an al- 
most unprecedented progress in railroad constmction. 

Now, permit a brief recapitulation of the points made. 
Money loaned is a service rendered, whose value, like the 
value of all other services, is and always will be controlled 
by the law of supply and demand and compensation. It is 
a service whose value varies with the hour as does the value 
of any other commodity. It is just as proper for the State 
to say that hogs and cattle shall sell at a certain price. Some 
one will say that money is a necessity for men to have, and 
consequently in its rate should be controlled by law. Grant 
the necessity and this is the very reason why your usury laws 
are of no avail. Men will have money, and in order to get 
it, have to pay its value and more than full value, on account 
of the risk that usury laws produce. 

If my opponent says money is a standard of value, and 
that gov^ernments can fix its absolute and loanable value, I 
answer, granting the proposition for sake of argument, that 
anyway the State of Kentucky cannot fix an absolute value; 

[ 41 ] 



but, however, I deny the truth of the proposition. For 
money, though an Imperfect standard of value, which I will 
not elaborate here, and which you will find elaborated In all 
books on the subject of recent date, Is also a medium of 
exchange. As a standard of value, money has no more 
value than yardsticks — the cost of making — but as a medium 
of exchange It has, and that value Is controlled by the law 
of supply and demand. Governments can fix the denomi- 
nations of money, as they can the number of pounds in a 
bushel of wheat, but they can no more fix its value than 
they can that of the bushels of wheat. It is not only the 
bushel measure, but also the bushel of wheat. 

I admit money varies In value less than other things, 
but this Is on account of the uniformity of supply. Now, 
again, the loanable rate Is also controlled at any particular 
time by the law of supply and demand. Therefore usury 
laws that make the legal rate ver}^ low, and which may 
work little or no Injustice when the loanable rate Is very 
low, when the loanable rate is high work great injustice. 
So the only way In which the six per cent, limit can be 
justified is by a state of affairs that keeps the actual rate 
continually below^ the limit fixed In the law, so that the law 
would practically give free trade. 

Further, in the way of recapitulation, I claim that usury 
laws are against the interest of the borrower; for. If the 
law be rigidly enforced, money is sent to where it can be more 
profitably used or is put to other uses, and consequently the 
wants of the borrower cannot be satisfied at the legal rate. 
What general effects would the rigid enforcement of your 
old six per cent, usury laws bring about? Would your bor- 
rowers be benefitted? Would your manufactories be ex- 
tended? Would your Internal Improvements go on with a 
greater impetus? Would more railroads be built? Would 
your coal and Iron mines be as rapidly developed? Your 
accumulated capital in the hands of capitalists would be 
loaned in those markets where it would command Its full 

C 42 ] 



loanable value. Your money would command Its full loan- 
able value. Your money would be used in developing the 
resources of other States, in building their railroads, their 
canals, their furnaces and manufacturing establishments. 

No foreign capital would find its way into your State for 
investment so long as your fixed rate was below the actual 
rate. Your young business men would be unable, so long 
as your usury laws were enforced, to get the necessary capital 
to carry on their business or open up new enterprises, and at 
the same time would be deprived of the profits to which 
they would be justly entitled. Now, if on the other hand, 
as is always the case, the law be partially enforced, the 
honest man not only pays the fair value of his money, but 
an additional percentage to compensate for the average risk 
and diminished supply; whereas, the dishonest man gets the 
full benefit of the laws as a premium on his dishonesty and 
breach of faith. 

We further claim that usury laws infringe on the rights 
of property and the right of the individual to make as good 
a bargain for himself as he can. Usury laws take for granted 
that a man is not the best judge of his own interest, a fallacy 
exploded by time and experience. 

My argument is done, and by the argument I am willing 
that this bill should live or die. I am convinced that against 
me are all the prejudices of the medieval past and the dema- 
gogism of the present. I do not mean to assert that there 
are not on this floor many honest, conscientious advocates of 
the bill under discussion. With me is the enlightenment of 
the nineteenth century. Against me are those who think they 
can fix and make the value by legislation, and who have thus 
solved the problem of national prosperity; for if they can 
make money worth six per cent., they can make it worth a 
thousand; and if they can make an ounce of gold worth a dol- 
lar, they can make it worth a million. All reforms are at- 
tended with difficulties, but I am thoroughly convinced that 
I am right in this matter, and now warn you that your bill 

C 43 ] 



will not bring about the results you desire. In reality, it 
will have the opposite tendency. Restrictions on trade are 
always attended with bad results. The wiser we become 
the more fully we acknowledge and appreciate the adequacy 
of nature's laws to give justice to all, the strong and the 
weak alike — and that it is only the interference of man in 
the field of commerce that gives rise to oppression and wrong. 
"As the harmony and beauty of the celestial system is 
finally found to result from the most simple laws, so, as men 
become wiser, they more fully see and appreciate the ade- 
quacy of the natural laws to well and wisely control and regu- 
late the productive energy of the country, and to give to 
internal trade and foreign commerce that harmony and 
beauty whose moral results are justice and equality to all, and 
whose physical results are material development and prog- 
ress. As we grow more cognizant of the physical and men- 
tal phenomena around us, we more and more acknowledge 
the power of the All-seeing Providence to do all things well; 
the more and more are we forced to condemn the officious 
and improper meddling of governments with the laws of 
trade, upon which depend alone a nation's prosperity and 
happiness." 



THE ELECTORAL BILL AGITATION. 

From the True Kentuckian, Paris, Sept. 5, iSyj. 

We would think the Electoral Commission Bill an issue 
of the past, at least inside the Democratic party, if certain 
politicians, who opposed that scheme of Arbitration, were 
not now using in their public speeches and otherwise their 
opposition to it as a means of making political capital for 
themselves at the expense of those who differed from them. 
We would not now care to say anything in reference to this 
subject, were not the efforts of these gentlemen (they well 
knowing that extreme and sensational views take well in a 
community in which a strong partisan majority exists) add- 
ing fuel to the flames of the strong partisan spirit which is, 
and has ever been, one of the principal dangers threatening 
the perpetuity of institutions. As It is, we think it not in- 
appropriate to say a few words with reference to this subject. 
We shall speak from a Democratic standpoint, but let us hope 
at the same time from a patriotic one. 

What was the situation of affairs when the Electoral 
Commission bill was brought into shape by the joint com- 
mittee of the two Houses of Congress? The "prima facie" 
case, if not against us, was at least In doubt. There was no 
statute law to settle a contested Presidential election. The 
clause of the Constitution in regard to counting the vote was 
vague and Indefinite, leaving it in some doubt whether that 
power resided In the President of the Senate or in Congress; 
and if in Congress, whether the power to throw out the vote 
of a State existed; and if it did exist, whether either branch 
could use such power at will; whether it was necessary that 
joint action should be had; and if joint action was imperative, 

[ 45 ] 



whether through the action of the two houses as a joint as- 
sembly or simply as acting concurrently. 

It is true that the twenty-second joint rule had been in 
force, but this rule had been repudiated by the Senate/ only 
five Democratic Senators (we think) holding that it was not 
repealed. It would have been improper and dangerous for a 
Democratic House at such a critical state of affairs, to have 
insisted upon a rule repudiated by their party in the Senate. 
Many dangerous and distracting rumors as to what would be 
the action of the President of the Senate in counting the vote 
and declaring the result were afloat throughout the country. 
On the other hand, Republicans were led to believe that the 
Democrats intended to install Tilden by force. The country 
was alive with indignation meetings. In fine, the passions of 
both parties were aroused to the highest pitch of excitement. 
Having briefly stated the situation, we now ask what was 
the duty of a patriotic representative or statesman under 
such circumsances? And first let us speak of one thing that 
more than all else, we think, threatens danger to our Repub- 
lic. It is the spirit of disregard for law (we speak of law 
both in its statutory and constitutional sense) and a want of 
respect and reverence for the authority of the law and legal 
methods. 

With us, if we would preserve our institutions, the law 
must be king; and all the loyalty which in other countries 
clusters around Kings and Emperors must be faithfully given 
to the law. This is the only way (and the true student of 
the history of Republics knows this well) in which our insti- 
tutions can be kept stable and at the same time progressing. 
All the conservative forces of intelligence and morality which 
are necessary to our salvation must work in this channel, or 
else chaos and anarchy await us. As a corollai*y to this 

^ "By a joint rule, adopted in February, 186S, by the two Houses, preliminary 

to counting the electoral votes cast at the Presidential election of 1864, it was 

directed that 'no electoral vote objected to shall be counted except by the con- 
current votes of the two Houses.' This rule necessarily expired with the Congress 

which adopted it, but it was observed as a regulation (no one raising a question 

against it) in counting the electoral votes of 1868 and 1872." — Blaine, Twenty 
Years in Congress. 

[ 46 ] 



proposition, the wild spirit of party must be curbed and re- 
strained to a strict observance of the law and legal methods. 
Now, the patriotic Representative knew that there was no 
perfectly legal method for the satisfactory adjustment of the 
peculiar phase that the Presidential question had assumed, 
therefore it was his duty to use his best endeavors for the 
supplying of this void in the laws by a legal enactment of as 
fair and as just a character as possible under the circum- 
stances. This was done; and the better elements of society, 
before the final judgment of the Commission, and before 
prejudice was excited by the bias of disappointed individuals, 
approved the law passed as the best possible scheme of ad- 
justment; dread and apprehension were everywhere changed 
into relief and satisfaction. As it happened that Hayes, Re- 
publican, was declared elected by the operation of this bill, 
some radical Democrats find this a most fortunate time in 
their speeches to the people to make their opposition to this 
bill seem an act of great virtue, courage, wisdom and espe- 
cial foresight; and all this, to the disadvantage of the men 
who in the passage of this bill stood nobly by their country 
in spite of party clamor; and all this, having for its accom- 
plishment, if not its intention, the making of a still more bit- 
ter and rancorous sectional and partisan spirit, which spirit 
already is the disgust of all educated and philosophical for- 
eigners who study our institutions. These men denounce the 
bill as unconstitutional, as cowardly and as a fraud. We 
shall notice but two or three of their principal objections, for 
our space will not further permit. 

Firstly, we will not argue this question with them, for 
what we should say would be only a repetition of what has 
already been so much better said by others. We shall only 
refer them to the arguments in the Senate and House of 
those greatest legal luminaries of both parties — Bayard, 
Thurman and others on the part of Democrats; Edmunds, 
Conkling, Hoar and others on the part of the Republicans. 
The opinions of these great legal minds, unopposed by a 

[ 47 ] 



single one of great note on the other side, will always be 
conclusive with the intelligent American public, regardless 
of what local politicians may say of the constitutionality of 
the law. 

Again, among other objections (from a partisan stand- 
point) to this bill, it is said that if the bill had not passed, 
Tilden would have been inaugurated. They explain it in 
this way — had the House refused to agree to any announce- 
ment by the Senate and its President of the election of Hayes, 
or had such announcement been impossible from a division 
of opinion in the Senate itself; then, there being no election 
legally announced, the House would have had the constitu- 
tional right to elect. What a perversion of the constitution ! 
In 369 electoral votes, none being thrown out and there be- 
ing only two candidates, one or the other in constitutional 
sense necessarily had a majority of such votes. The consti- 
tution only allows an election by the House when it is ascer- 
tained that "no person have such majority." As long as 
there was no vote legally thrown out, and there was in fine 
no legal ascertainment that neither of the candidates had a 
majority of all votes cast (which ascertainment under the 
circumstances was impossible), so long the House had no 
right to elect. 

Again, and we will notice but one more point for other- 
wise it will make our article too long, these objectors say: if 
Tilden had only been firm and had publicly announced that 
he had been elected and would take his seat, he would have 
been peaceably installed in office. It were many times better 
for the country that Hayes should have gone into office 
peaceably and under the strict operation of law, than that 
Tilden should in either the absence or disregard of law, how- 
ever much we Democrats might prefer a Democratic adminis- 
tration, occupy the presidential chair. Let us love our 
party, but let us love it as a chosen instrument to do good to 
our country. Let us know that all our rights of life, liberty 
and property have for their only barrier against the powers 

[ 48 ] 



of communism, anarchy and confusion the force and author- 
ity of the law — these let us not weaken, but strengthen. 
However much we condemn the judgment of the Electoral 
Commission — and we do believe that judgment unjust and 
wrong — still we will ever hold that day on which the bill 
became a law one of the proudest days of the Republic. It 
was a day bespeaking a long continuance of our institutions 
in a stable and liberty-giving form. It showed, when in the 
midst of an unexampled partisan feeling, when the body poli- 
tic was in the throes of one of the greatest convulsions, which 
in all probability Providence has in store for it, that our 
American politician when brought to the test had sufficient 
sense and moral courage to lay aside that bitter partisan 
spirit, which all well informed men know is the bane of the 
Republic, on the altar of patriotism. 

The Democratic politicians who voted for the bill, in do- 
ing their country good, conferred a benefit on their party. 
The Democratic party could not have afforded to have re- 
fused the Electoral bill, and they could not have afforded, 
even if it could have been done peaceably, which we do not 
grant, to have put Tilden in office in disregard of legal meth- 
ods and in antagonism to the law-loving spirit of the country. 
The reaction would have come and the party showing itself 
indifferent or disloyal to the law would have been hurled 
from power as unfit to rule the destinies of this great Repub- 
lic to whose maintenance all the forces of wealth. Intelli- 
gence, liberty and morality In self-preservation are pledged. 



EXTRACTS FROM RAILROAD ARTICLES. 

I. On Public Aid of Local Companies.^ 

Many of our party cling to the old Democratic belief that 
taxes should only be levied for governmental purposes, a 
doctrine which finds considerable strength from an analysis 
of the purposes for which, in theory at least. Individuals as- 
sociate themselves together as States. In state of nature be- 
fore government was constituted, if such state ever existed, 
every man, In theory at least, was independent as nations are 
now. To make gov-ernment possible concession was neces- 
sary. For the protection afforded by the government, the 
right to taxation and infliction of punishment was granted to 
the government. It was necessary for the Individual to have 
such protection as to promote his general welfare; but it was 
also necessary that certain individual rights be given up; and 
further, in our form of government, it was agreed that the 
majority was to control. It all may be considered a contract 
between the government and individuals. But the majority 
by this arrangement has only the right to rule when the ob- 
ject comes within the view of the original agreement. Hence, 
it might be deduced that only for governmental purposes for 
which we are associated together as a nation, the majority 
has the right to control. As a collateral idea to strengthen 
this view of the question, we would say there certainly must 
be some limit to the power of the majority or else universal 
suffrage would be the greatest despotism to which time has 
even given birth, * * * 

^ This and the following series of extracts are taken from discussions of various 
local railroad projects, presented^ for approval to the people of Bourbon County 
during the years 1870-85; viz.: The Union Railroad, Paris, Georgetown ^ Frank- 
fort, etc. The few passages in this book have been chosen with the view of 
illustrating as connectedly as possible the two chief principles involved. 

[ 51 ] 



Nearly all the states, I believe, where the railroad system 
has been in a reasonable degree extended, have constitution- 
ally prohibited public railroad subscription." * * * 

The motive that (in the main) influenced our Legislature 
in the first place, and for years after, to allow counties by 
popular vote to subscribe aid to railroads, was the feeling 
and the fact that only in that way could they be built. It 
was not alone from reason of the public advantage being pro- 
moted, for manufactories, foundries, shops and stores are of 
advantage to the public by furnishing by their competition 
their products and wares at cheaper rates; but it was from 
the fact that private capital was inadequate, in the case of 
the railroad, to the magnitude of the undertaking, while in 
the case of factories, etc., private capital was considered am- 
ple and able. In other words, in the past, what justified and 
excused popular aid to railroads by majority vote, was the 
absolute necessity of such aid for the building of even the 
most paying and needed roads. 

It is a principle well understood and recognized that a 
popular vote even in regard to matters of governmental do- 
main is not the safest custodian of financial interests. Much 
more objectional is it as the arbiter of expenditure in regard 
to matters that go beyond governmental control and which 
are of doubtful principle and constitutionality. The neces- 
sity of popular subscription to railroads by majority vote has 
passed away. The country has come to that state of wealth, 
accumulated capital, low rates of interest, and business skill 
in every department, that railroads are everywhere being 
built by private and corporate enterprise. The necessity for 
popular aid having passed away, why should not also the 
measures or principles that spring from it pass away? Is it 
to be held that we should forever cling to all the bad prece- 
dents of the past simply because they are precedents? 

With equal reason it could be claimed that the war meas- 

' Written about 1885. Under the old laws of the State, Counties could, at 
the discretion of the Court, by a majority vote, levy taxes to promote railroad con- 
struction. This was done away with in 1891 in the new Constitution of that year. 

[ 52 ] 



ures and the unconstitutional executive interference in the 
South immediately after the war should now be continued, 
although the necessity that then justified or excused them has 
passed away forever. Let us rather vote down this proposi- 
tion. Let us act in a spirit consistent with the growing sen- 
timent of the country, with the best intelligence of the State, 
and in fine with the true theory of our government. * * * 
Our system of government is political and organized for 
political or governmental purposes, and it was never in- 
tended by its founders to engage in general business. This 
was left for the province of individuals. * * * 



n. On Limiting Railroads to Railroad Business.^ 

As the railroad party has made all the speeches and done 
nearly all the electioneering, it is but proper that the other 
side should be heard. In publicity and discussion, if carried 
on in a proper spirit, there can only be good. Truth comes 
out stronger by conflict, and error, in proportion to the thor- 
oughness of the discussion, is eliminated. * * * 

It is a very vicious system to allow a railroad (especially 
a coal and lumber road) to own coal and lumber lands; for 
it will in some way or other prevent that free competition 
that is necessary to furnish these articles at lowest price to 
the consumer. * * * 

I have an instance in mind — that applies to other articles 
equally as well as coal — of how just such a railroad enter- 
prise as these gentlemen propose, turned out in regard to this 
point of which I speak. In the Legislature of 1 872-1 873 
there was a railroad bill proposed by the member from Hop- 
kins County, which originated from the following condition 
of affairs. The county of Hopkins and other counties had 
subscribed to build a railroad to the nearest coal fields. The 

* Written some twenty years before Federal action on this subject. 

C 53 ] 



railroad owned coal lands as in our case, and so far as I can 
recollect there was the greatest similarity with this present 
project. The road was built and run. The member from 
Hopkins — he so informed us — had a coal mine upon this 
road, but still he was compelled to buy every bushel of coal 
which he used at home at an exorbitant rate. The company 
always managed to have only cars for their own coal and 
never enough to carry other people's coal. The bill, if I re- 
call rightly, proposed to compel the company to furnish loco- 
motive power to carry cars that individuals and firms at their 
own cost might place on the track. I do not recollect the 
fate of the bill; but I use this instance to show how vicious 
it is in principle to allow a coal and lumber road to go into 
coal and lumber business, particularly when said road, as is 
proposed in the present case, is built wholly or in part by the 
public subscription, and consequently for the public good and 
not private gain. 

The most enlightened Legislatures of the present day, 
profiting by experience, have followed the principle that an 
incorporated company shall confine itself to one business — 
railroads to railroading — banks to banking — mining com- 
panies to mining, etc. Corporations, since they are granted 
privileges that individuals do not possess, to prevent an abuse 
of their power, and for the protection of the public for whose 
convenience and profit they are in great measure created, are 
properly put under such restrictions as do not apply to indi- 
viduals. This policy is a bulwark for the protection of the 
people from the dangers that arise from aggregated capital 
working through great corporations. It is particularly im- 
portant in regard to railroads; for this form of corporate 
power seems inclined to grow from small beginnings to an 
overshadowing and baleful prominence in our state and 
national politics. * * * 



FROM THE RECORD OF THE CONSTITU- 
TIONAL CONVENTION. 

I. Accepting the Presidency of the Convention, 
THE Capitol, Frankfort, September 8, 1890. 

Gentlemen of the Convention: 

I am profoundly affected by my election, and most cor- 
dially and gratefully appreciate it. Especially is my appre- 
ciation of it enhanced by the fact that you preferred me over 
such worthy and distinguished competitors. But, to be can- 
did, I think you preferred me not on account of my own per- 
sonal merit, but because you felt that in me you found, along 
with other candidates, one who was in thorough sympathy 
with the wants and needs of the great mass of the people, an 
exponent and representative of them in their just and reason- 
able demand for proper protection against any consolidation 
of power which might unduly threaten their welfare and hap- 
piness. And this feeling, which neither tolerates commu- 
nism, agrarianism, nor the least impairment of the rights of 
property on the one hand, nor the unlimited and despotic 
control of great public agencies on the other, simply 
demands in the spirit of American liberty equal rights and 
protection to all. To your wisdom is confided the duty of 
drawing the line of prudence and safety; and in drawing that 
line let us remember that the adequate protection of the indi- 
vidual in his rights of life, liberty and property, not only con- 
duces in the highest degree to the prosperity and welfare of 
society, but is the best and most permanent foundation for 
material prosperity and progress. We have met to perform 
a most important duty — a more important duty I cannot well 

C 55 ] 



imagine — and let us give to that task the very best efforts of 
our intellects and hearts. 

Our present constitution was adopted forty years ago. 
Since that time wonderful changes have taken place. In 
looking over those forty years we find them crowded with 
great events, which shook the nation to its center, and we find 
an era of physical and material development that has eclipsed 
all the preceding centuries. Then the railroad and tele- 
graph systems were pigmies; now they are giants, bringing 
into association all the people in the closest sort of contact. 
Since then every conceivable implement of machinery to aid 
production, transportation and manufacture has been in- 
vented. The useful system of life insurance, and many 
other contrivances to ameliorate the condition of society and 
make more prosperous and happy the lot of mankind, have 
been originated and developed. In fine, the brain of our 
people, stimulated by training and education, has in every 
department achieved the grandest triumphs. 

The question for us to determine is this: What new ad- 
justments in the organic law are required by these changed 
conditions that we see around us? While the principles of 
liberty in their essence do not change, still it is necessary, as 
society develops, as new conditions arise, that there should be 
adaptation to these conditions. Now, I imagine that among 
the changes demanded are, first, those to adequately and fully 
protect the individual in his rights of life, liberty and prop^ 
erty; then, those changes which are required in the processes 
of government in order to save expense, that your govern- 
ment may be more convenient to you, that your prosperity 
may be promoted, and that the execution of the law may be 
more evenly and speedily procured. 

But I will not go Into details to tell you what your wis- 
dom and experience at the proper time will more wisely 
determine. I Imagine that various prohibitions will be im- 
posed upon the power of the Legislature; that better and 
simpler arrangements of the courts will be made; that the 

C 56 ] 



purity of elections will be better secured. Our mode of re- 
vision by Constitutional Convention, making a revolution in 
the Constitution possible, is certainly not as wise and philo- 
sophical a change in the mode of revision by which, while 
we give stability to the organic law, the Constitution will be 
allowed to grow according to the wants and necessities of the 
people. 

But in all these things, no doubt, your wisdom and ex- 
perience will much better decide than I could indicate. Let 
us always remember, though, in changing this Constitution 
that it represents the centuries of the best efforts of noble and 
patriotic minds to secure society and liberty from communism 
on the one hand and from despotism on the other; and let us 
not discard needlessly any of those time-honored guarantees 
and provisions; and let us remember all the time that we are 
representatives and the servants of the people; that to them 
we owe an undivided allegiance; that to them we owe the 
very best efforts of our minds and hearts. And may the 
blessing of God attend our work. 

Again, gentlemen, thanking you for this distinction, I 
appeal to you for your aid and forbearance while conducting 
the proceedings of this Convention. I will now allow the 
Convention to proceed to business. 



II. On the Revision Clause.^ 

I paired with the Delegate from Boone on yesterday; and 
as he has spoken on this matter, I think it is proper and right 
to keep up my pair, and I will say something on the other 
side. Times change, and we change with them. Buckle has 
said that statesmanship consists in a wise expediency; that 
the future can much better, knowing its wants and needs, 
provide for itself than we can by anticipation. Some man 

* Delivered during the debate on this question March 31, 1891. 

[ 57 ] 



has said that the dictionary of a Nation gave its history — 
commercial, social and political. That can be said much more 
truly of the laws of a nation — the organic, statutory laws. As 
a matter of course, the organic laws do not change as much 
as the statutory laws, and should not; but still, as society 
develops, new dangers arise, and there is a necessity for new 
Constitutional provisions to properly protect the rights of the 
people and restrain and regulate the growing or originating 
dangers. My political philosophy is, that what is good for 
one era does not necessarily apply or prove good for another 
era. As society evolutes, and its conditions change, its laws 
must change. As a matter of course, the organic laws are not 
changed so much as the statutory, but still even they must 
necessarily be modified or enlarged as time progresses. 

The Constitution is to protect the rights and liberties of 
the people, and whenever new conditions arise, by which 
these rights and liberties are affected, we should be in posi- 
tion to change our laws accordingly. In this Constitution we 
have put many new things. The gentleman from Scott asked 
for a bill of particulars; and I tell him that neither he nor 
any living man can give a bill of particulars, but that 
time and experience alone can give such a bill. The philoso- 
phical way is for laws or Constitutions to grow slowly, and 
gradually to adapt themselves to the varying wants and needs 
of the community. Society grows and develops slowly. The 
animal creations develop slowly. Mechanical ingenuity 
gradually evolutes new productions; and you ought to pro- 
vide means by which your Constitution may show some ca- 
pacity for growth and development. How can you do that 
except by an open clause, allowing fair chance for reasonable 
amendment? Give your people an open clause, by which 
they can adapt their Constitution to suit their growing and 
evoluting wants, needs and necessities. That is the only true 
way of development. Now, I have been over this State a 
good deal; and everywhere there is an apprehension that we 
have put into this Constitution a great many experiments; 

[ 58 ] 



and I find everywhere a public opinion that, unless we give 
the people the power to save themselves from such experi- 
ments as may not prove wise and prudent, they will reject 
this instrument. 

We have embodied many new provisions, and we will 
never have them accepted by the people, and should not, un- 
less at the same time we give them a reasonably open clause 
by which, as experience shows and necessity dictates, they will 
have the power to correct evils and mistakes, either by sub- 
traction or addition. They demand it of you. When the 
spirit of liberty dies out among the people, the forms of law 
amount to nothing. You may build up the restrictions, 
thinking that you have the wisdom of all ages to come, and 
thinking in that way that you can protect the liberties of the 
people; but you cannot do It. The forms of law amount to 
nothing, when the vigilance of the people has died out, when 
the spirit of liberty has died out. Do not distrust the people. 
They are going to take care of their rights and liberties. I 
am not for an open clause which makes it too easy, but for 
such a clause as will enable the people to adjust their Consti- 
tution to the evoluting wants and necessities of the future. I 
tell you, upon the open clause depends the fate — I do not ut- 
ter it as a threat — of this Constitution. If you give the peo- 
ple a Constitution, which, we admit, may have a great many 
mistakes and experiments In It, but at the same time give them 
the power and let them feel that they have the power to con- 
trol, shape and mould It according to such exigencies as may 
arise, I am confident they will correct It by means of that 
power; but If you do not give that power to them, they will 
vote down the Constitution by a large majority. 



III. On Election vs. Appointment of Railroad 
Commissioners.^ 

I want to say a few words in a conversational way. 

* * * Gentlemen who have observed the struggle made by 
the friends, as I call them, of the people in the State of Ken- 
tucky for railroad regulation, know that I have been in the 
fight for six years, ^ and that I have done my best, what- 
ever that may be, to properly regulate this great and grow- 
ing power in behalf of the people, in order that the people 
should not be oppressed, in order that discriminations and 
exactions should not be placed upon them, which may amount 
to far more in some instances than State and national taxa- 
tion combined. 

I consider this the most important question in our State 
politics. Yes, I repeat, I consider this question, as to the 
proper regulation of railroads, as the great question of to-day 
in our State politics; and I consider it the far greater prob- 
lem of the future. The thing that most astonishes me in our 
civilization is the rapid growth and concentration of wealth 
in every department of business. We are a wonderful peo- 
ple, and live in a wonderful age; but the most surprising 
thing is this tendency of wealth to aggregate and accumulate 
power, and consolidate and destroy competition, and prevent 
the ordinary man from making a decent livelihood; and the 
particular phase of that concentration that most affects the 
individual citizen is railroad consolidation. If the railroads 
be unregulated — and they have been but insufficiently regu- 
lated heretofore — if they are allowed to discriminate as be- 

^ C. M. Clay's aggressive fight against the railroad interest and its illegal 
influence in State politics was the chief feature of his term in the State Senate 
1885-88, and, in fact, a feature of his whole legislative career. In a statement 
issued during the campaign for the nomination for Governor in 1895, he says: 
"To-day, justly or unjustly, no interest, in the average, is more opposed to my 
election than that of the railroads. No interest more antagonized my election to 
the Presidency of the Constitutional Convention." As further illustrative of this 
position it is said in a separate card: "The greatest fight of my legislative career 
was one in the interest of the people, and especially the laboring classes, in trying, 
to the best of my judgment — for honest and conscientious men will differ as to 
the manner — to prevent discriminations by railroads against our citizens and town. 

* * * I defy any man to show that in all my legislative career I ever yet pros- 
tituted my official trust to further personal gain or profit." 

C 60 ] 



tween individuals, they can give a monopoly at any point to 
one man or to one firm, or to two or three firms. If they are 
allowed to discriminate as between localities, which they have 
been allowed to do, they can build up one community, and 
absolutely ruin another. They can depreciate the values of 
land in some counties ten or fifteen dollars an acre. They 
can put upon any people greater exactions and greater hard- 
ships than the tariff and the State taxation combined, for the 
whisky tax finally goes on the consumer.- 

On this account I consider the regulation of this 
vast power, by which the principles of republican liberty 
shall be preserved so that the private citizen shall enjoy de- 
cent comforts and luxuries, and in fine have a right to make 
a decent livelihood, more important than any other question 
of State politics. In discussing the Constitution before the 
people,^ I always devoted three-fourths of my time to 
the provisions in the Constitution which provided for the 
regulation of this great railroad power; and I never said a 
word publicly in favor of appointing these Railroad Commis- 
sioners, but privately I told all the persons I conversed with 
that this was our greatest mistake; and everywhere I met 
with the unanimous opinion that it was, and that the people 
ought to have the power to elect. The people, by a tremen- 
dous majority,^ have indorsed these principles of railroad 
regulation. They are aroused on this question. They appre- 
ciate the necessity for an adequate regulation in their behalf 
of this power that is growing with such tremendous strides, 
a power which is continually gaining strength by the unifying 



'That is, the tax on whisky is in the end paid by the consumer; and, there- 
fore, Kentucky's contribution to the Internal Revenue should not be measured by 
the amount distilled, which would make the amount inordinate, but by the amount 
consumed in the State. 

* Referring to the campaign made for the new Constitution during the summer 
of 1891. The present speech was made Sept. 15, 1891, during the final session of 
the Convention, after the draft of the Constitution had been ratified by popular 
vote the preceding August. In this draft, Railroad Commissioners were made ap- 
pointive by the Governor; the amendment, proposed by Mr. Clay, to make them 
elective, was the chief change adopted in the Constitution after the referendum 
to the people. 

* The vote for the Constitution was 212,432; against, 74,017, making the majority 
for the Constitution 139,415. The new Constitution contained important changes 
over the old in the way of proper railroad regulation. 



[ 61 ] 



ot its interests through the consolidation that is going on in 
every direction. They see that the ordinary principles of 
competition give them no relief; that while they build new 
roads, consolidation goes on faster. 

The people have indorsed these principles, and in offering 
my amendment for the election of these Commissioners my 
only desire was to make more efficient that regulation which 
the people have indorsed. The principle involved in all this 
is the regulation as secured by five or six provisions in this 
Constitution; and the appointment or election of Commis- 
sioners is simply a means to carry out that regulation, which 
is necessary and the life of the Constitution in that respect. 
Now, gentlemen, we do not want any personalities in this 
thing. We do not want any passion or prejudice. We want 
to look at it from a sensible standpoint, and the only question 
involved is a question of means, the importance of which we 
all acknowledge. I confidently believe that in Bourbon coun- 
ty, they consider the election of a Railroad Commissioner 
more important than that of a Governor. It is more impor- 
tant to that people in a substantial way. That county in the 
last thirty years has paid more to the Kentucky Central Rail- 
road in excess of what a fair rate would be, than it has paid 
State and National taxation, for the tax on whisky is paid by 
the consumer. Therefore, they consider it a most important 
question; and do you tell me, if these Commissioners are 
elected, the people will not take interest in the election? To 
say so, is to say that an intelligent freeman will not protect 
his own interest. 

The only question is whether this regulation, so essentially 
necessary, will be best secured by appointment by the Gover- 
nor or election by the people. In elections by the people the 
issue is open and public. There is a Convention in which one 
officer is named. There is no complication of issues. There 
is no possible combination of various candidates. The inter- 
est of the people is self-evident; and to tell me that where 
the matter is open and public, where the interest of the peo- 

[ 62 ] 



a force to penetrate far, it must be undivided and concen- 
trated, and the opposing force scattered; if you want a force 
to have but little penetration, divide it, and the penetration is 
lessened just in proportion to the division of the force. 

In a State Convention the forces and attention of the peo- 
ple are divided into twenty channels; and the railroad forces, 
gaining strength with every consolidation, and with only one 
purpose, and that to make money off of the people, are united 
and concentrated; and to tell me that they cannot accomplish 
more in a fight of that kind than in a fight where there is but 
a single issue, open and aboveboard, is to deny every princi- 
ple of sociology and philosophy. That is all there is in it. 
In what way can the people best protect themselves in regard 
to this great and growing danger, which more threatens the 
right of the individual to make a livelihood than all the other 
dangers in our civilization? I believe, in accordance with the 
common laws of force in mathematics, physics, sociology and 
common sense, that the people can accomplish more when 
their attention and power is concentrated, when there is but 
one issue, and where combination is the least possible, than 
where their attention is diverted and their forces divided 
among numerous issues, and where the opposition is united 
and consolidated. That is all there is in the question, and 
when you do decide that, you decide this matter. I can state 
it no better way than that. The whole question is, which 
is the better way to carry out this regulation of railroads 
which the people have so thoroughly indorsed? With this 
presentation of this simple question, I close my remarks. 



pie Is so great, where there is but one issue, where no combi- 
nation is possible, that the people cannot protect their rights, 
is to tell me that republican government is a failure, and that 
there is not enough virtue and manhood left in the people to 
preserve their institutions. 

Now how is It on the other hand ? In a State Convention 
there are twenty-five or more candidates, and the attention of 
the people is divided into that many different parts; but how 
is the railroad power? The railroads are going to try to 
influence the naming of Railroad Commissioners, because it 
Is a matter of business with them. These Commissioners are 
assessors of the railroad property; and to effect their purpose 
may be worth thousands of dollars a year to the railroads In 
this respect. Under the long and short haul law the Com- 
missioners are to prevent these unjust discriminations between 
localities so heavy on some communities In the State. It is 
worth thousands of dollars to the railroads to secure a fav- 
orable Commission. 

In a State Convention they have only one object, and 
they have the most gifted managers in the State. They have 
the utmost concentration of purpose. In a State Convention, 
as said by the Delegate from Fleming, nobody would think 
about Railroad Commissioners. Who would have thought 
about Railroad Commissioners in any of the late Conven- 
tions? And It will be so In the future. The attention of the 
people is divided between twenty-five issues; but that of the 
railroads is concentrated and united with only one Intent, and 
that Is to secure a favorable Commission as a matter of 
business. Do you tell me that thus working in the dark, 
with the attention of the people directed to tw^enty-five dif- 
ferent personal issues, the people will have the same power 
of resisting the railroad power as they will where there Is but 
one oflice and one Issue, where the Issue Is public, and where 
this interest financially Is so great? To tell me that, is to 
deny all the experience of humanity, to deny all the laws 
which prevail In sociology as well as in physics. If you want 

[ 63 ] 



SPEECH BEFORE THE DEMOCRATIC STATE 

CONVENTION, 1895, WHEN DEFEATED FOR 

THE NOMINATION FOR GOVERNOR. 

*^Mr. Cassias M. Clay, Jr., was seen walking across the extreme 
rear of the stage, and a round of cheers forced him to come forward. 
The hall became so quiet that the ticking of a telegraph instrument in 
a room adjoining the stage could be heard distinctly. Mr. Clay 
spoke as folloii's." — Clipping from the Louisville Courier- Journal, 
June 27, 1895. 

Fellow-Democrats and Friends: 

Four years ago I went down in defeat in this same hall, 
and I cheerfully submitted to the decision. Again to-night I 
go down in defeat and I again cheerfully submit to the deci- 
sion and pledge my hearty and earnest support to the nomi- 
nee of this convention. 

Parties cannot exist unless the minority submit to the rule 
of the majority. I think the Democratic party is formed for 
great purposes, and that any Democrat is unpatriotic and 
unfaithful to his State, unfaithful to himself, unfaithful to 
his fellow-Democrats, and unfaithful to the true friends who 
have stood by him, who will not give cordial support to the 
party when he is defeated. 

When I started into this canvass, I was opposed to 
bringing the financial question into the canvass, and the rea- 
son of that was this : I felt that to decide the question as to 
who should be nominated for Governor by the Democratic 
party by how he stood on the financial question, ignored 
every proper consideration that should enter into the deter- 
mination of this question. I knew how divided the party 
was; and I felt the aggravation of our differences could only 
injure the Democratic party, and might make probable the 

[ 65 ] 



success of the Republican party. Therefore, in a spirit of 
faithfulness to Democratic rule in the State of Kentucky, I 
earnestly protested against the lugging of that question into 
this canvass, but against my protest and earnest endeavor it 
was lugged in and made an issue. When I first entered upon 
that policy, it appeared that the wave in favor of the free and 
unlimited coinage of silver at a ratio of i6 to i was irresist- 
able; but I took my stand then, and although that wave has 
receded and although the sentiment is now for sound money, 
I have adhered to that policy. Now, I want to tell you, as 
probably this is the last time I shall ever appear before the 
people as a candidate, that I am an advocate of sound cur- 
rency and have always been such an advocate. I thoroughly 
indorse the administration of Grover Cleveland and Ken- 
tucky's most distinguished son, John G. Carlisle, and If to- 
night you had adopted a free and unlimited coinage i6 to i 
platform, I would have refused to be your nominee, should I 
have been nominated, because I could not have defended It. 
We cannot afford to have Republican rule In the State of 
Kentucky. The Republican party cannot give on the average 
as good government to this State as the Democratic party; 
and why? Nations have just as good government, no better 
and no worse, than they deserve. They will have no better, 
because there will be no vigorous public sentiment on the part 
of the people to enforce It; and they will have no worse, be- 
cause they won't submit to it. The same way with a party. 
The administration of a party cannot be any better than the 
party Itself. Now, look at the constituency of the two par- 
ties. I will freely grant that the average Republican white 
voter is the equal of the average Democratic white voter in 
intelligence, in morality and In interest In the welfare of the 
State; but still, every fair-minded man must allow that a large 
proportion of the Republican vote is the negro vote, to a very 
considerable extent Illiterate and ignorant, so that the aver- 
age unit of Intelligence, morality and interest In the welfare 
of the State in the Republican party Is below the similar unit 

r 66 ] 



in the Democratic party; and as the stream cannot rise higher 
than its source, as party government cannot be any better 
than the party itself, Republican rule in this State cannot on 
the average be as good as the Democratic. 

This is not only theory, but is illustrated in the history of 
all of the carpet-bag governments in the South, where the 
constituency of the two parties was analogous to the constitu- 
ency of the two parties in this State, It is illustrated in every 
Republican county government in the State of Kentucky, 
where the constituency of the two parties is analogous to the 
constituency of the two parties in this State. It is illustrated 
everywhere throughout the world and history; and if this is 
so, if the cause of Democracy is the cause of good govern- 
ment, then every Democrat who is a patriot and feels like 
doing his duty ought to make an honest effort to prevent 
Kentucky from falling into the hands of the Republican 
party. So I call on all true Democrats to rise to an appre- 
ciation of the situation, to prepare for the fight and to do 
everything they can to elect the Democratic State ticket, head- 
ed by Gen. P. Wat Hardin. 

In conclusion, let me say, Avhile having the kindest senti- 
ments for those who have supported my opponent, I want to 
earnestly and fervently thank the tried and true friends who 
have stood so faithfully and earnestly by me in this canvass. 



THE LOUISVILLE POST'S SUMMARY OF A 
SPEECH BEFORE COMMERCIAL CON- 
VENTION, LOUISVILLE, 1895. 

Mr. Cassius M. Clay's address on agricultural progress 
was a characteristically able presentation of the case of the 
farmer. He emphasized the interdependence of all classes of 
modern society, and then showed how, from the very nature 
of the case, the farmers, though the most numerous class, 
were so scattered that concert of action was almost impossi- 
ble. Then Mr. Clay said: 

"Therefore of all classes, the farmer, most of all, should 
Insist that his government pass only equal and uniform laws, 
without bias or favoritism to any. He should insist upon this, 
because it is just and Democratic; but also, If for no other 
reason, because In the race for favoritism he will always be 
outrun. In order that his business be burdened as little as 
possible, taxation should be as light as Is consistent with an 
efficient administration of law and order; and to effect this 
he should vote for honest, upright and well qualified men for 
public office, and to a large extent men from his own class. 
And, by the way, nothing adds more to bad and inefficient 
government than to select men for county, city and State 
offices by the test oi what opinions they hold on some na- 
tional question. A man might as well select a manager for 
his farm by the same test, and expect to see his farm well 
managed. While political parties are necessary to give con- 
cert of action and efficiency to men, holding substantially for 
the time being the same political opinions, still we should 
never forget that they are but means to certain ends of good 
government, and should be used aright; that the ends should 
never be lost sight of for sake of the means; and that a blind 

[ 69 ] 



partisanship or bigotry is a great evil and the hold, to a great 
extent, by which the boss in cities, and the clique in counties 
and States perpetuate their power to the disadvantage of the 
people. 

"Good rule in city, State and even nation must depend 
upon the fact that the independent strength is sufficient to 
hold the balance of power between the parties or partisans 
and keep them upon good behavior. The farmer may be al- 
ways sure that when other classes are unduly favored by the 
government, it is done to a greater or less extent at his ex- 
pense. It is exactly as when any organ or part of the body 
is unduly stimulated, there is always a subtraction of blood 
and nutriment from the other parts of the body, and finally 
a detriment to the whole. 

"Let the government, by wise and liberal laws, give en- 
couragement and healthy development to all interests, but no 
favoritism to any, should be the political faith of every 
farmer." 

Mr. Clay, in a few sentences, stated the case against the 
trusts in a way that must satisfy the men who believe that the 
best guide for the future is the experience of the past. 

"These great combinations," said Mr. Clay, "necessarily 
throw a great many men out of employment, and to a more 
or less extent control the prices of the raw material and the 
finished product, and in transportation also control the freight 
and passenger rates. When such raw material is a product 
of the farm, as for instance tobacco, cattle, cotton, etc., these 
combinations injuriously affect the farmer's business, and 
their judicious limitation and restraint properly becomes a 
question of great importance to him. 

"There is no doubt, since a corporation is an artificial per- 
son and the creation of the government, that the government 
can within constitutional limits, without any infringement of 
equal rights, properly control and restrain it so that it may 
not exercise any power inimical to the rights of the masses. 
While a certain amount of concentration of capital and effort 

[ 70 ] 



is an almost necessary concomitant of a high state of material 
development and will naturally take place with advancing 
civilization, still the great extent to which it has been, and is 
being, carried looks ominous to the average man, and threat- 
ens a real and great danger to our democratic institutions. 

"Yet, I have not abundant faith in the ability of our poli- 
ticians to properly handle this question. Men of the best 
knowledge and experience of such politico-economic questions 
are rarely elected to public office, and a majority of those who 
are elected by their radical and superficial expedients, and 
blatant appeals to popular prejudice, will do more harm 
than good. For while monopoly is a very great evil, anar- 
chy and communism are an equally great one. All extremes 
meet, and each in this case will only aid the other. From 
monopoly to spoliation and anarchy, and from spoliation and 
anarchy to monopoly, through despotism, the step is equally 
easy. 

"In the meantime the government can and ought to limit 
and restrain their powers, when dangerous, by taxation, or 
repealing the tariff where it protects or makes possible such 
combination, or in any other way consistent with the princi- 
ples of liberty and the proper protection of the rights of 
property. One great difficulty with the governmental con- 
trol of this question is the fact that each of the various States 
can incorporate such companies, and that it is practically im- 
possible to have any uniform system of legislation in regard 
to them." 

As to the relation of the farmer to the farm, as to the 
farmer himself, Mr. Clay said: 

"No question about farming can be introduced but about 
which the best of farmers disagree — probably in most cases, 
both sides approximately right under their special conditions. 
Now under these varying circumstances, a mastery of detail 
in any particular case is necessary to secure a reasonable suc- 
cess. Therefore, the successful farmer of the future must be 
a man of observation and intelligence, and possessed with a 

[ 71 ] 



proper zeal to keep up with the best varieties of livestock, the 
best kind of grains, forage plants and grasses, and also with 
the most improved methods of feeding stock, so that the 
greatest profit shall come to the products of the farm, as 
turned into beef, pork and mutton. And all this is to be 
done without any deterioration of the land. In fact, success- 
ful farming demands a continual improvement of the land. 

"In the last forty or fifty years there has been in this 
country a vast improvement in the farmers' methods, and the 
consequent results. I have always lived on a farm. When a 
boy, our implements and processes were most crude, compared 
with those of today. Thus, for instance, we harvested grain 
with a sickle or cradle. Then after awhile came the clumsy 
reaper, with one man driving and another standing on the 
rear platform with a fork to throw off the grain, a machine 
badly constructed and continually getting out of repair. Next 
in course of evolution appeared the self-dropper. Then the 
self-rake, and finally, after many changes, the almost perfect 
self-binder. In the handling of livestock a great progress 
has been realized. Then, cattle being prepared for market 
were fed on corn alone, unprotected in winter weather, ex- 
posed to the storms and snows. Now, in a good many cases 
under good shelter, they are fed a judicious mixture of feeds, 
with much better results; and the same improvement is seen 
in a great many other respects. 

"In this spirit of independence and self-respect, in this 
spirit of tolerance and consideration, in this spirit of investi- 
gation, must the farmer approach every social and political 
problem." 



IN EULOGY OF HON. WM. GOEBEL. 

"In presenting the resolutions, Hon. Cassius M. Clay read the 
following tribute to the late Governor Goebel, which on motion 
was ordered to be published in full with the proceedings of the meet- 
ing." — From Paris paper, February, igoo, referring to a Democratic 
mass meeting held at the Court House in Paris, February 5th, to 
adopt suitable resolutions upon the tragic death of Governor Goebel. 

Permit me to say a few, plain, blunt words in memory of 
my old friend, Hon. William Goebel. I knew Mr. Goebel 
intimately for years. First, as a colleague in the Kentucky 
Senate, working in the main for mutual objects and actuated 
by the same political sentiments and motives. In the Consti- 
tutional Convention we were again associated together inti- 
mately, both personally and as to common objects to be se- 
cured as desirable and necessary in the organic law for the 
welfare and protection of the people. Since then we have 
differed politically in some of the great issues, and in the last 
few years I have seldom met him. He was my friend and I 
knew him well. 

The words that I shall now speak of Mr. Goebel are not 
to be considered as the fulsome phrases of praise and eulogy 
usually giv^en a man when dead, but my honest and accurate 
analysis of his personal character and public purposes. I 
always found him utterly reliable and truthful, one of the 
very few men in public life who was absolutely undaunted in 
carrying out those measures that he thought necessary for the 
welfare and protection of the great mass of the common peo- 
ple. No bribe of any sort, honor, or political preferment, 
danger, or fear of personal consequences, could abate one jot 
or tittle of that capacity, energy or action that he had conse- 
crated to the service of the people. 

By nature a radical, and eminently fitted to be a great 

[ 73 ] 



tribune of the people he, in the fierce fight for the protection 
of the plain people against colossal corporate power, might 
have, from a conservative standpoint, committed some mis- 
takes or errors; but this did not come from any abating of 
the conscience or weakening of the moral force in the man, 
but from the fierceness and unscrupulousness of the fight 
made upon him, and from his earnest and indomitable desire 
that the people, whose cause he ardently believed he repre- 
sented, should prevail. 

A great many of us think that his greatest political mis- 
take was the passage of his election bill. But to Mr, Goebel, 
who had consecrated his energies and abilities to the fight in 
behalf of the protection of the plain people against the en- 
croachments of corporate power, such a bill seemed absolutely 
necessary to prevent the debauching of elections by the money 
and influence of the said power. He felt, however mistaken 
he may have been, that it was a bulwark in defense of the 
rights of the people. This fight of his to restrain the cor- 
porate power within what he thought due limits, was no new 
fight with him, assumed for demagogic purposes, but com- 
menced with the first day of his official life and continued to 
the hour of his death, 

I shall not attempt here any estimate or analysis of his 
intellectual abilities, for by his public acts and speeches such 
estimate can be made by the world. Suffice it to say that they 
were of a very high order. But amidst the mountains of 
abuse and contumely that were heaped upon his personal and 
moral character, and this in a greater degree than ever before 
known on account of the strong, selfish interest behind it, I 
felt it my duty, being one of the few who really knew him 
(and at the best there are very few who so know any man) 
to give my honest testimony in behalf of his moral purpose 
and high and lofty integrity. 

To a man who has been somewhat in political life, among 
the great crowd who are influenced by paltry and selfish mo- 
tives, fearful of their very shadows in defense of principle, to 

[ 74 ] 



a great extent unreliable, It is refreshing to meet men of Mr. 
Goebel's character, brave, truthful and devoted to high prin- 
ciples and purposes. A very eminent lawyer, a kind and in- 
dulgent brother, a reverent and obedient son, a staunch 
friend, a plain, simple, pure man In private life, an undaunted 
and fearless tribune of the people, he has died as he earnestly 
believed, fighting their battles, a warrior with his harness on, 
in the strength and vigor of his manhood. 

"Tell my friends to be brave and fearless and loyal to the 
great common people," were appropriately his last words. 



SPEECH ON THE TARIFF, AT LOUISVILLE, 
NOVEMBER 3, 1894. 

I am much pleased to meet so many of the inteUigent citi- 
zens of Louisville here tonight, and I am very much com- 
plimented by your presence. Being a business man, I pro- 
pose to speak to you in a plain, conversational way. I wish 
to make, in the first place, a plea for a more accurate and 
conscientious consideration of political questions. 

When we consider matters of private interest we care- 
fully examine the facts; reason as accurately as we can; get 
the benefit of our own and others' experience; make up our 
conclusions in a safe and conservative manner; and all because 
we feel it so important to us not to be wrong. Now, I hold 
that the questions of good government, county. State and na- 
tional, are of enough importance to justify and demand of us 
the same sort of consideration. If it is as necessary to be right 
in regard to these questions, then the obligation is upon us as 
good and patriotic citizens to give to these political questions 
the same conscientious, accurate and prudent consideration 
that we give to our own individual affairs. To do any less is 
to neglect our duty as patriotic citizens. 

It is from this standpoint and in this temper I shall dis- 
cuss public affairs. Spencer has said in substance, and truly, 
that we decide public affairs too much from an emotional 
and impulsive standpoint, and not enough from that of rea- 
son and cool, discriminating judgment. Though Republicans 
may so boastingly prophesy and some Democrats may be a 
little dazed and discontented, the Democratic party is not 
destined to die. Its platform is based upon true political 
economy and true principles of human liberty. Though men 
may come and go and names may change, that party which 

[ 77 ] 



embodies in its fundamental principles, economy in the admin- 
istration of the government; the principle of the greatest 
amount of local self-government consistent with necessary 
national strength and integrity and equal rights under the law ; 
a sufficient currency of gold, silver and paper money of con- 
stant value; free or freer trade; that party is bound to finally 
control the destinies of this great country. To suppose any- 
thing else, is to suppose the minds of our people to retrograde 
and civilization to decay. All the forces of education, phil- 
osophy and experience are battling in our behalf. As they 
increase in power, with expanding development, their strength 
will become overwhelming and sweep out of existence the 
party based upon bigotry and selfishness, or force it to align 
itself afresh upon ground more nearly our own. And thus it 
will be until the victory of free trade and true republican 
liberty is completely won and secured. 

Now let us briefly run over the fundamental ideas of our 
political faith. 

The Democratic party stands first for economy in the 
administration of the Government. This comes necessarily 
from our belief in the Government being restricted to doing 
only those things that the Government should necessarily do, 
and leaving to individuals all those things that private enter- 
prise can better accomplish. The record of every Democratic 
Congress since the war proves that it is the party of economy. 
Next, we believe thoroughly in the principle of local self- 
government. That is, that the National Government should 
only have such powers as are necessary for national integrity 
and safety, and that the States and people thereof, and the 
communities and people thereof, should regulate, in as great 
a degree as possible, their own affairs. They better know 
their immediate wants, and can better provide for them, and 
can provide for them without injuriously affecting the local 
interests of other communities. 

Besides, there is a grand philosophical principle involved. 
Our theory is that Government is created for the benefit of 

[ 78 ] 



the individual, and not the individual for the benefit of the 
Government; and the greatest glory of any government is a 
manly, intelligent and noble citizenship. The law of devel- 
opment is the law of use. If you would strengthen your mus- 
cles, your mind, or your moral qualities or any other faculties, 
you must use or exercise them. So when you throw upon any 
community the necessity of exercising all those qualities of 
body, mind and soul required for intelligent and self-restrain- 
ing self-government, your system develops in the greatest de- 
gree possible those qualities that make a people great. The 
history of the world shows that those nations have developed 
the grandest citizenship that have embodied in their polity 
the greatest amount of local self-government. Surely we 
Democrats are right in regard to this. 

I now propose to speak of the tariff question and the 
financial depression, its causes, and my idea of the manner 
of recovery; how much caused by legislation and how much 
by natural causes, as a matter of course in an approximate 
way. The tariff is an old and worn question, but still as im- 
portant as ever. I shall discuss it mainly from a new stand- 
point — that is, so far as the stump is concerned — and I shall 
make an argument about it, not only on account of the im- 
portance of the great question itself, but also as a basis for 
the explanation of the financial depression. The tariff ques- 
tion is generally discussed on the stump from the standpoint 
of human liberty and as violative of equal rights. It is said 
that when one man is taxed directly or indirectly for the bene- 
fit of another, to that extent his political liberty is destroyed, 
to that extent he is the slave of the other man. This argu- 
ment is elaborated and illustrated and made a very forcible 
appeal to the noble emotions and sense of justice of men. It 
is a noble standpoint from which the orator may appeal to and 
arouse the noblest enthusiasm of honest men. But, after all, 
the argument in itself is not logically conclusive to the calm 
thinker. The Republican will make this reply. Right here 
let me express the hope that Republicans are present. I do 

[ 79 ] 



not believe in taking any advantage of Republicans. The way 
to convince men is to treat them fairly, not to mistake their 
opinions, or misrepresent their motives. I freely acknowledge 
that as Individuals they are just as honest and patriotic as we 
are, and the only difference between the parties from my 
standpoint Is that our policy conduces In a much higher de- 
gree to the glory, prosperity and true republican liberty of 
our country. I was saying that the Republican would reply 
that in the social organization men are mutually to a great 
extent dependent upon each other; that one carries a part of 
his neighbor's burdens, and his neighbor a part of his; that 
every appropriation to a harbor, a river, a public building or 
other object. Involves a tax upon all, for the benefit of a few; 
and, although under the tariff a man may be Indirectly taxed 
for the benefit of others, that he receives compensation in 
many ways; that he receives compensation through an in- 
creased home market, through increased wages to the labor- 
ing man, through an Increased diversification of industries, 
and In other ways ; and that when the whole balance is struck, 
the man who is indirectly taxed for the advantage of others, 
instead of being injured, is actually benefited. 

Thus the mind Is to a certain extent confused. But there 
is an argument that is comprehensive, exhaustive and conclu- 
sive. It is the argument from the standpoint of political 
economy; the argument which has made all the great histor- 
ians, political economists and thinkers free traders; the argu- 
ment which has influenced professors In all the great North- 
ern colleges situated in the section where the protective feel- 
ing Is strongest — Yale, Harvard, Williams, Amherst, Prince- 
ton, etc., teaching free trade — the argument which is turn- 
ing out yearly from those great institutions of learning thou- 
sands of graduates, well trained thinkers, brave and efficient 
soldiers In the battle for tariff reform; an argument that has 
not been answered and cannot be. For if it were possible to 
have answered it, the billions of consolidated wealth Inter- 
ested in the tariff surely would have had some professors 

C 80 ] 



teaching Its refutation in some of the great colleges situated 
in the manufacturing East. It can no more be answered than 
the proposition that two and two make four. Well, what Is 
the argument? I will give it to you as briefly as possible. 

Trade is more or less mutually advantageous, and the in- 
centive to trade and the profit of trade is the difference of 
relative efficiency In producing the two things exchanged. 
States and nations differ in a thousand respects; nations in 
soil, climate, situation, production and otherwise. Communi- 
ties and states differ in the same way. Individuals differ in 
physical and mental characteristics; one man is better adapted 
for law; another for medicine; another for business, and so 
on. On account of these differences in men, states and nations, 
there is necessarily a difference of relative efficiency in pro- 
ducing various services and commodities. Now the Incentive 
to trade and the profit of trade depend upon these differences; 
and any individual, community or nation will, in the aggre- 
gate, get the greatest amount of production and wealth by 
putting their labor and capital Into their most efficient chan- 
nels of business and with the product of their most efficient 
labor and capital purchasing those other things that they 
need, but cannot so efficiently produce. Let us illustrate this 
principle mathematically. Let A represent an individual, 
community or nation, and let B represent another individual, 
comimunlty or nation. Now A, as a matter of course. Is most 
efficient In his own business, and B In his own. The lawyer 
is better as a lawyer than a farmer, and the farmer better as a 
farmer than a lawyer, and so on. Let A's efficiency in his 
own business be represented by lo, and B's In his own busi- 
ness by lO and the efficiency of each in the business of the 
other by 5. This means that each can do as much in his own 
business in say five days as the other working not In his own 
business can do In ten days. So that In this case each by con- 
fining himself to his own business, by a free exchange, each 
desiring of the other's product, procures by five days' labor 
what otherwise If he had to produce himself, would require 

[ 81 ] 



ten days' labor. So In this case each saves five days' labor for 
the production of additional wealth. This is the incentive 
and profit of trade. Suppose now, the figures are ten and 
six; still there is a four days' saving of labor, and four days 
on the part of each measures the incentive to trade and the 
profit of trade. Make the figures ten and seven and still there 
is a profit of three days to each. Let the figures be finally ten 
and ten and all the incentive and profit to trade disappear, 
and trade does not take place. The profit to each party does 
not necessarily have to be the same as in the illustration 
above, but necessarily there must be more or less profit to 
each, or else there is no incentive on the part of each to trade. 
Now, when Government comes in, as between individuals, 
communities, or nations, for the same principle applies, and 
by a prohibitory tax, protective system or any manner of ob- 
struction, prevents this free exchange of the products of the 
most efficient labor and capital, or by taxing profitable indus- 
tries, to make profitable naturally unprofitable business, it al- 
ways does so at a loss of the efficiency of both capital and 
labor. This statement is mathematical, logical and accurate. 
Spencer says In substance in strict accord with this principle : 
"Governmental legislation or interference in commercial mat- 
ters, except it be the repeal of bad legislation or the removal 
of obstruction, always does harm, and does harm just In pro- 
portion to the interference with the natural laws of supply 
and demand." The law of God or nature brings about the 
best results, and the narrow, bigoted and avaricious interfer- 
ence of man always does harm. This argument leaves not a 
single peg upon which to hang a single shred of the garments 
of protection. The Republican will here say: "Your system 
would place too much labor and capital in one or a few busi- 
nesses — would not give us that dlv^erslficatlon of industries 
that is necessary for the welfare and prosperity of the coun- 
try." 

The reply Is : The law of supply and demand will proper- 
ly distribute the labor and capital of the country. Whenever 

[ 82 ] 



too much labor and capital are placed In one business, there 
will be overproduction and a fall in prices below the cost of 
production ; and by the force of the law of supply and demand 
the surplus labor and capital will be redistributed into other 
business, so that the tendency will always be to distribute the 
labor and capital of a country into that diversity of industry 
that is natural and proper, and which in the aggregate will 
give the greatest average efficiency to labor and capital, and 
which necessarily will produce the greatest possible amount of 
wealth and prosperity. This argument places protection in 
its most invulnerable fort and destroys it, for you can suppose 
that protection is an ideal system; that it is gotten up by hu- 
manitarians and philanthropists, who are actuated only by a 
sense of justice and right; that the benefits and burdens are 
equally distributed between all classes and all sections of the 
country; and still the principles we have elucidated show most 
certainly that where there has been any obstruction or prohi- 
bition of the free exchange of the products of the most effi- 
cient labor and capital, it is inevitably done at a loss to the 
parties involved and the country in general. But what are the 
real facts about the protective system? 

It is a system gotten up by greed and avarice. The strong- 
est interest can and will elect the most Representatives and 
Senators. The weak elect none. The legislation accomplished 
is the resultant of forces. The strongest forces in the main 
prevail. The strongest interest, which needs least, gets the 
most protection, and the weakest, which we can reason by 
sympathy should have most, gets least. One section, under 
the system, accumulates wealth at the expense of other sec- 
tions, one or a few classes at the expense of the great consum- 
ing mass. Massachusetts and the manufacturing East accu- 
mulate immense wealth at the expense of the great agricul- 
tural West and South. The highest principles of true repub- 
lican liberty, the equal rights of all citizens, are trodden under 
foot, and all the dictates and principles of sound political 
economy and business ignored. Instead of intelligence, big- 

[ 83 ] 



otry and medievalism are blindly followed. Instead of the 
principles of humanity and liberality, the passions of narrow 
exclusion and bigoted selfishness are cultivated. 

The Republicans depend mainly upon the side arguments, 
that protection gives a better home market and also higher 
wages to the laborer. Let us briefly examine these two points, 
mainly from the standpoint of the argument we have made, 
and see how they are completely answered by it. Home mar- 
ket, in the abstract, means power or ability to buy and con- 
sume. Now what gives this power in the greatest degree? 
Population or wealth? Prosperity conduces to increase of 
population, as Buckle clearly shows. So any policy that con- 
duces in the highest degree to the prosperity of the country 
necessarily makes the best home market. Take the wages 
question from the same standpoint. The price of labor is ab- 
solutely controlled by the law of supply and demand. The 
richer a country^, other things being equal, the greater the 
demand for labor; for the capital of a country constitutes the 
wages fund and the greater the fund, other things being equal, 
the greater the demand for labor, and the higher the price. 
Take the countries of Europe where conditions are the same, 
and you will find this rule absolutely true. So if the policy of 
free trade is best for the development of the wealth of the 
country, it will necessarily create the best demand for labor; 
especially when we consider that it is a policy which favors a 
more just and equal distribution of wealth and is most antago- 
nistic to combines, monopolies and trusts. While we are on 
the labor question let us add one or two more considerations. 
Labor will be high, where it is scarce, and low, where it is 
plentiful. The manufacturer, while reaping his certain re- 
ward from protection, never gives his laborers what he can 
afford to give, but only what he is forced to give under the 
law of supply and demand in the open market. The laborer 
in a few instances may get a small increase in value of wages, 
but he may be sure that in every case he pays far more in the 
way of burdens placed upon him by protection. Of all sys- 

[ 84 ] 



tems of taxation the protective especially discriminates against 
the laboring man. The tariff is a tax upon consumption. The 
laboring man consumes pretty much all that he makes, the 
rich man but a small part of his income; so that the system 
relatively discriminates against the laboring man. Finally, 
the advocates of protection claim that, because the country 
has prospered under the protective system, therefore protec- 
tion is right, 

I have seen young men who had good constitutions grow 
up to vigorous manhood in violation of every law of hygiene 
and health. This young and vigorous country with its im- 
mense natural resources, with its intelligent and indomitable 
population, could not be kept from a great development by 
any policy, however bad; and you might as justly claim that 
the young men mentioned above owed their vigorous man- 
hood to the violation of every law of health, and not to their 
innate constitutions, as to claim that this country owes Its 
great development to the protective system and not to its 
great natural advantages, and noble and Indomitable people. 
As a matter of fact, the decade of 1850-60 under a low tariff 
shows the greatest percentage of increase of wealth of any 
decade of our history. 

Let us now examine into the causes and responsibilities of 
the financial depression. The diagnosis of every financial 
panic or depression, with some modifications, is about the 
same. The great political economists in their analysis of the 
previous panics all show this. A financial crisis has its symp- 
toms like consumption, pneumonia or small-pox. First, on ac- 
count of the emotional and speculative nature of men, there 
Is booming of prices and expansion of values in one or more 
directions. Values are controlled by the law of supply and 
demand, and when the pendulum of value is swung too far 
back to one side. It Inevitably must swing back as far to the 
other side, before coming to its true point of rest. Capital is 
diverted from Its legitimate channels of business into these 
boom channels. When the reaction comes, men try to hold 

[ 85 ] 



on to their boom property as long as they can; they boom 
money at high rates of interest and make a stringent money 
market, but finally have to sell out at a great loss. Capital is 
lost. When one man is hurt financially, ev^ery man who buys 
of him or sells to him is more or less Injured. For trade is 
mutually advantageous, and the prosperity of our neighbors 
is our prosperity and their adversity adds to ours. Men are 
emotional. We give confidence by our confidence, and by 
our distrust we give distrust, to those with whom we are as- 
sociated. Finally, the crash comes, capital is wrecked, con- 
fidence is lost and we have the financial panic. How was it 
with the present depression? It commenced by an over- 
straining of values in the Argentine Republic. When the re- 
action came, capital and confidence were lost. The great 
English firm of Baring Bros, was Involved in the catastro- 
phe. Then Australia showed the same symptoms, and their 
banks suspended to the extent of two hundred millions of dol- 
lars, involving in their calamity their commercial correspond- 
ents, the London bankers. The depression and financial 
stringency next appeared in Continental Europe, France, Ger- 
many, Italy, etc. Then America became involved, not only 
by commercial connection with these countries, but also on ac- 
count of some special forces of her own. The commercial 
world is now so closely connected together by cheap transpor- 
tation, railroads, steamships, telegraphs, bills of exchange 
and all the various modes of clearances, that any impulse 
given to any part of it is felt throughout all other parts of it. 
Now In the United States, besides the effects of our commer- 
cial connection with the balance of the world, already affected 
by the depression, we had the booming of certain properties 
far beyond their real values; the bad effect of the Sherman 
silver-purchasing act, a Republican measure ; and the accumu- 
lated bad effects of the vicious tariff system, by which wealth 
had been unequally distributed and certain Industries unduly 
stimulated and overproduction, so far as the home market is 
concerned, produced. Such overproduction on account of the 

[ 86 ] 



tariff was created upon so high a rate of artificial cost that 
foreign exportation was impossible and employees were neces- 
sarily thrown out of employment, until the home market 
could consume the surplus. 

The situation in Europe today is as bad as in this coun- 
try; forty-five cents for wheat with cheap transportation 
means much more of disaster to the English than to the 
American farmer. There they have artificial manures to 
buy and very high-priced lands, and the cost of production of 
agricultural products is necessarily much higher with them 
than with us. I saw in a reputable newspaper some time 
since an account stating that a farm In England, which fifty 
or sixty years ago had rented for 2,100 pounds, had lately 
rented for one pound, the tenant in each case paying the 
taxes. The same state of affairs exists in the other European 
countries, so that the depression has and does extend to a 
greater or less extent throughout the commercial world. 
What is the situation in this country? We are a great agri- 
cultural country with an Immense surplus of agricultural 
products to export, and this surplus will yearly become great- 
er. Now every business man knows that In the main the price 
we get for the surplus controls the price we get for the same 
articles sold at home. The price for cotton, wheat, etc., is 
controlled by the price we get for the surplus of these articles 
exported. If we exported none of this great surplus, prices 
would go to the very lowest figures. 

The only way to get a better price for a commodity, the 
supply being given, Is to Increase the demand. All the legis- 
lation In the world cannot raise values, except so far as it may 
affect the supply or demand. All the legislation of all the 
parliaments In existence, declaring that the Ohio River shall 
flow up stream, will not make It do so, for it will obey only 
God's law, the law of gravity, and flow down stream; and so 
in regard to values, the only way to make a commodity more 
valuable is either to make it scarcer, or to make a greater de- 
mand for it. The situation of America today Is that It has a 

[ 87 ] 



large surplus mainly of agricultural products to sell abroad. 
Interests in this country are so connected together that all 
other businesses necessarily languish unless those interests 
represented by this great surplus flourish. The only way to 
get a better price for this great surplus is by having our 
European friends in better financial condition and by having 
a better and wider foreign demand. Trade is mutually ad- 
vantageous and Europe must be in condition to take our sur- 
plus at remunerative prices. 

Now let us speak of the responsibilities of the two par- 
ties for the present and past condition of the country. In the 
first place, how could Cleveland or the Democratic party 
make a better demand in England and Europe for cotton, 
wheat, tobacco, etc. ? Upon the prices of these products as I 
have shown you, our whole commercial prosperity mainly de- 
pends. What acts have they committed that have injured 
these prices? On the other hand, what has been the responsi- 
bility of the Republican party? I am trying to bring it down 
to a mathematical and business basis. In the first place, 
they aggravated the situation by the passage of the Sherman 
silver-purchasing act, which was draining the country of 
gold and impairing European confidence in the stability of 
our monetary system. In the second place, the ill effects 
of the tariff system, in its unjust and unequal distribution 
of wealth and its overstimulation of certain industries, 
and its formation of trusts and monopolies, had put the 
country in bad condition to stand financial strain. Finally, 
as I have before shown you, as the only way to in- 
crease value is to increase demand, the whole effect of 
the protective policy was to lessen foreign demand for our 
surplus, and to diminish and curtail our markets, when, 
to broaden and widen them was our only hope to get better 
prices during our financial strain. Love begets love, hate 
begets hate, and as we treat others so will they treat us. 
The Republicans, by their policy of exclusion against the pro- 
ductions of other nations, had by this fundamental law of hu- 

[ 88 ] 



man nature built up Chinese walls of exclusion of our prod- 
ucts on the part of Germany, France, Italy and Spain. ^ They 
had even forced upon England, the country which takes the 
greater part of our exports, the necessity of building up, as 
far as she could, competitive markets, with our agricultural 
exports, in Australia, Africa, South America and India. 
When the crisis came and we could only increase prices by a 
greater demand for our immense surplus, the effect of the 
Republican policy was to cut us off effectually from any such 
recovery. How can patriotic, thinking men be Republicans? 
The Republicans seem to think we can thrive best by 
cheating our neighbors, or at least by having nothing to do 
with them. Our belief is broad, Christian-like and humani- 
tarian; that trade is mutually advantageous; that we prosper 
in the prosperity of our neighbors, and are damaged by their 
adversity. How shall the commercial recovery come ? From 
a hundred different factors; for instance to take one, the Wil- 
son Tariff bill has passed. It will give, and has given, cer- 
tainty to the future of the manufacturer, and he will employ 
his full complement of men. These men receiving wages 
will buy food, raiment and other necessities and comforts. 
This will stimulate each of these industries and those indus- 
tries, being stimulated, will stimulate all other connecting In- 
dustries. Foreign trade or importation will be increased, and 
foreign demand for our products (the foreigners being in 
better condition) will be stimulated, and thus from many 
sources, each impetus of advantage strengthening the other, 
these streamlets finally nmning together will create the broad 
river of normal prosperity. Confidence at the same time will 
grow in the same way. Now in regard to the tariff bill, I am 
glad that it was passed. I, among others, wished a more 

* To partially obviate these conditions reciprocity is to be favored. In a later 
article on the TariflF, Mr. Clay says (speaking of the principles of free-trade) : 
"There is one difficulty in the way of the application of these true economic prin- 
ciples — a difficulty produced very likely to a great extent by our example — -I speak 
of the fact that so many nations have established high protective tariffs, so as to 
prevent us from getting full benefit of the right policies in this regard. Here is 
where the principle of reciprocity comes in and is to be approved, as a means of 
gradually removing these foreign obstructions to the full action of a right economic 
system." 

C 89 ] 



radical bill, but under all the circumstances, It was the best 
attainable. For various reasons I am glad that it was passed. 
In the first place, the financial reaction to better times was 
bound to come. If it had come with the McKinley Bill on 
the statute books, the Republicans would have said: "I told 
you so; just as soon as you Democrats quit meddling with the 
tariff prosperity returned." It completely answers this mis- 
erable demagogism. In the next place, after we had carried 
the country on a platform of tariff reform, the Senate, the 
House of Representatives and the presidency all being Demo- 
cratic, had we failed to do anything in the way of tariff re- 
form, the charge would have been hurled at us on every stump 
that the Democratic party had no administrative efficiency; 
that we had no business sense; that we were unworthy of the 
confidence of a patriotic and business people. What answer 
could we have made? Again, the bill was a step in the right 
direction, and in the fight against the power of great consoli- 
dated wealth the first step is very often the hardest to take. 
It was a step in the direction of getting a better reward for 
our capital and labor; a step toward broader and wider mar- 
kets; a step toward greater manufacturing production, 
greater commerce, and last though not least toward true 
Democratic liberty and toward more equal rights of every 
citizen under the law. 

The Republican may say that Democratic agitation of the 
tariff question added materially in bringing on the financial 
depression. How could that agitation materially affect the 
prices of wheat, cotton, cattle and tobacco in Europe, upon 
which our home prices depended? But be the results of that 
agitation what they may, who is responsible for the results?" 
If I rob you, and you agitate for the recovery of the stolen 
goods and for preventing a recurrence of the theft, who is re- 
sponsible for the results of that agitation: I who committed 
the wrong, or you who only demand your rights ? 

' Elsewhere, in the article riuoted in Note 1, it is admitted: "Any sudden 
radical change of the Tariff, with business adjusted to the present high rates, would 
no doubt bring on serious financial depression, but this should not deter us from 
honest effort to gradually get clear of this pernicious system." 

[ 90 ] 



So long as our citizens are brave, manly and intelligent 
enough to know their rights, they will demand the redressing 
of wrong and injustice. The only way to ever stop the agita- 
tion is to right their wrongs. All the results of the agitation 
are to be justly chargeable to those who perpetrate and con- 
tinue the injustice, and not to those who only demand their 
just and equal rights. 

The record of the Democrats in the last Congress is a 
very commendable one. Though opposed by great obstacles, 
they accomplished much good. They repealed the odious 
Force Bill, and so made elections free from Federal interfer- 
ence. They materially cut down expenses. They repealed 
the Sherman act which materially threatened the business in- 
terests of the country, and did no good to the cause of silver. 
Finally they made considerable progress in the great cause of 
tariff reform, and, by the income tax, they placed upon those 
able to bear the tax some compensation for the discriminating 
burdens placed upon labor and agriculture. 

To carry out the great principles about which we have 
been speaking, men are required. You have nominated for 
Congress a man in every way worthy to be your representa- 
tive, able, honest and well trained for business. You have 
nominated worthy and well-qualified men for your county, 
city and district offices. You certainly can have no objections 
to any of them personally. But I do not ask you to support 
them on these personal grounds, although they are in every 
way worthy of it, but I appeal to you from a higher plane, 
from a more exalted standpoint. If you are a true Democrat 
or patriot, if you really believe that the great Democratic 
principles conduce in the highest degree to the welfare, pros- 
perity, happiness and liberty of your people, then as a patri- 
otic and duty-performing man you owe it to yourself in every 
moral fiber of your conscience, you owe it to your family, to 
your neighbors, your State and Nation, to give the represen- 
tatives of these great Democratic principles an earnest and 
vigorous support. 

[ 91 ] 



SPEECH IN FAVOR OF SOUND MONEY, PARIS, 

1896, A REPLY TO SENATOR STONE OF 

MISSOURI.! 

I appear before you to-night as a man who personally is 
out of politics. I have made my last race for a political of- 
fice, and hereafter I propose only to perform the duties of a 
private citizen. My motive to-night is solely to do my duty 
to my state and country. To the people of my county, who 
have cordially supported me in the past, I am profoundly 
grateful, and to some of them it may seem proper that I 
should not be here to-night; but when the passions of the 
hour have passed, I am sure that I will have better earned 
their respect by being true to my own earnest convictions. I 
believe the political crisis is the greatest since i860. I be- 
lieve our nation and its institutions, in fine, our civilization, 
are more on trial now than probably at any other period since 
1776. My personal, selfish interests are more on the side of 
Bryan; for I belong strictly to the debtor class — I owe oth- 
ers, no one owes me money. My property is in land, whose 
real value will be but little affected by either of the financial 
policies adv^ocated before the people. This much permit me 
to say in the way of a personal explanation. 

I shall discuss to-night the financial question almost 
wholly, and without personalities; for certainly the impor- 
tance of the question is worthy of such treatment. Our Free 
Silver friends seem to think the way to discuss the financial 
question is to indulge in abusive personalities. They evi- 

..n V"^,^ following note was written beneath the list of articles left for publication: 
Frobably the best speech I ever made was at Paris in 1896 against Bryan in favor 
of sound money. The manuscript speech in my papers leaves out some of the 
best and most pungent points, made principally in answer to Sen. Stone of Missouri." 
Unfortunately the manuscript referred to was the only copy of the speech pre 
served and available for publication. 

[ 93 ] 



dently bear in mind the advice of the law professor, who in 
his parting address to his pupils said : "Young men, you must 
recollect that when you have a good case you must stick to 
the law and the evidence ; but when you have a bad cause to 
support, you must abuse the other fellows as much as possi- 
ble, and in this way make a division." 

The issue is, shall we depart from the present standard 
of value, that is the present system with gold as the standard 
of value, with a limited coinage of over four hundred mil- 
lions of silver dollars and an extensive issue of paper money, 
all held equal to gold, and indulge in the unknown results of 
the unlimited coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to i when 
the commercial value of silver is about 32 to 1. 

Let us for a moment inquire what should be the qualities 
of the standard of value. The philosophic and honest cur- 
rency is one that remains as constant in value as possible. 
Money, like all other commodities, varies in value according 
to the law of supply and demand. A currency that depreci- 
ates in value hurts the creditor class; morally impairs the ob- 
ligation of contracts; increases speculation; temporarily 
booms prices; and finally brings on its natural reaction, finan- 
cial depression. On the other hand, a currency that unduly 
rises in value hurts the debtor class ; equally Impairs the obli- 
gation of contracts; lowers prices; checks enterprise and de- 
velopment; and has a chilling and depressing influence on 
business. The currency, or standard that remains constant 
in value hurts no one; gives confidence to business; and con- 
tributes in the greatest degree to prevent panics and to de- 
velop and increase the wealth and prosperity of the country. 

So it is always the highest wisdom to adopt that standard 
of value which varies least In the course of time. The gold 
standard, as we have It at present, with a plentiful but lim- 
ited coinage of silver, and with a sufficient Issue of paper 
money, all based on and equal to gold, is in my opinion the 
best attainable financial system. To leav^e this system, to go 
to the results that would be brought by the free and unlim- 

[ 94 ] 



ited coinage of silver at the ratio of i6 to i, would be 
ruinous. 

I freely confess that, were I to believe that the free coin- 
age of silver at the ratio of i6 to i would appreciate the 
value of the silver dollar up to and equal to the gold dollar, 
I would earnestly advocate that policy. It is because — and 
this is the whole gist of the matter — that I most earnestly 
believe it would not, but would fall far short of such a mark, 
that I think such coinage would be ruinous and disastrous in 
many ways to the country. 

No honest man, I take it, would want to change suddenly 
the standard of value fifty, twenty-five, or any large appre- 
ciable per cent. For such change would imply the impairing 
the obligation of contracts to an incredible extent, both on 
the part of the government and on the part of the private 
citizen, a bad breach of national faith and loss of credit, and 
incalculable loss to masses of individuals and, especially to 
laborers. 

It is difficult to fully state the whole disaster to our peo- 
ple, both physical and moral, of such a result. So, if I can 
pretty well establish that the free coinage of silver would 
largely depreciate the standard of value, I utterly condemn 
such policy in the eyes of honest and patriotic citizens. In 
fact, as the Bryanites propose the experiment, the burden of 
proof is really on them to prove that such depreciation would 
not be its result. 

Under the free and unlimited coinage of the two metals, 
or the free issuance of paper money, the Gresham law, which 
is based on eternal principles of human nature, prevails. 
This law is that the cheaper metal or dollar, when the supply 
is unlimited and both are legal tender, drives out of circula- 
tion the dearer. Men will pay their debts as cheaply as they 
legally can, and so, will not use the dearer dollar as long as 
they can obtain the cheaper. This law has been so often 
explained and illustrated that I will not further elucidate it. 
The histor)' of every country in various instances illustrates 

[ 95 ] 



and proves it. The reason why all our present money circu- 
lates concurrently is that the action of Secretary Carlisle and 
the credit of the government keep each and every form of 
currency equal to gold. This could only take place under a 
limited issuance of paper money and a limited coinage of sil- 
ver. Even under the present conditions the strain upon the 
Treasury is great, and our currency laws need some amend- 
ment by which such strain would be removed from the 
government. 

Bryan proposes that the government should freely coin, 
without charge, all silver bullion, brought to the Treasury, 
into silver dollars at the ratio of i6 ounces of silver to one of 
gold, when their commercial value varies at the ratio of 32 
to I, for the sole benefit of the holder of such bullion. He 
claims that the mere fact of such coinage being afforded to 
the bullion holders will raise the value of silver 100 per cent. 
If it does not, no gold will be used in the United States; for 
if the gold bullion in a dollar be worth more than the silver 
bullion in a dollar, gold bullion, instead of being coined into 
money, will be used to buy silver bullion, since this will make 
more dollars than the gold itself would have afforded by its 
coinage. To assume the contrary would be to suppose that 
men act without any business sense or shrewdness. 

Now, I admit, if the government should indulge in the 
free silver experiment and should at the same time promise — 
and had the ability to carry out such promise, which it has 
not — to redeem on demand every such silver dollar by a gold 
dollar, then, as long as the government had the ability to 
carry out this promise, each one of the silver dollars would 
be equal in value to a gold dollar. 

Bryan, however, proposes no such thing. He only pro- 
poses that the government should put its stamp on silver 
bullion that is now worth about 50 cents, call it a dollar, and 
make it legal tender for debts. At no time does the Govern- 
ment become the owner of such bullion or money, and its 
coinage is wholly for the benefit of the holder of the bullion. 

[ 96 ] 



We the sound money men claim, supported by the experi- 
ence of every nation and the precepts of every political econo- 
mist of the first class, that such money will only depreciate the 
value of debts and obligations, and that such money, freely 
coined, will drive out of circulation all better money. We 
claim that, instead of bringing on Bimetalism, it will only 
produce silver Monometalism and a greatly depreciated stand- 
ard of value. Such system, leaving out of account all the 
disaster and ruin brought on by such a shock to commerce 
and business, would finally do no good to any class whatever, 
but would be a burden and injury to business, and especially 
of great detriment to all the laboring classes. 

Now let us examine into the results of the election of 
Bryan, financially considered. As soon as Bryan took the 
oath of oflice and appointed his Secretary of the Treasury, 
and as soon as that Secretary refused to follow the prece- 
dents of Secretary Carlisle and other Secretaries in paying 
gold on demand on the presentation of Treasury notes, 
Greenbacks, etc., gold would immediately go to a premium 
and we should descend to the silver standard, for gold would 
no longer be used as redemption money by banks or by any- 
body else. All paper money, being redeemable in coin, 
w^ould be redeemed in silver, and would be worth no more 
than the bullion contained in the silver coin. This would 
take place before the passage of a law for the free and un- 
limited coinage of silver. When such a law was passed, for 
we are assuming that the experiment is to be carried out, the 
only inducement for the coinage of silver bullion into dollars 
would be the advantage of holding such dollars over the 
holding of silver bullion. The experience of all nations is 
that such dollars are only worth the bullion they contain, so 
that appreciation of the value of silver would be slight, cer- 
tainly not sufficient to raise it lOO per cent, in value. What- 
ever appreciation took place would be under the law of sup- 
ply and demand and not because of any fiat of the govern- 
ment. Increased demand for silver, caused by its enlarged 

[ 97 ] 



use as money in the United States (and its price is deter- 
mined by international supply and demand), would be met 
and compensated for by increased production, which would 
be the result of any rise in its value. 

Bryan says free coinage would cause an unlimited de- 
mand for silver, which would raise the value of a silver dol- 
lar to a gold dollar. Such a statement is nonsensical and 
false. The demand for silver would be the inducement 
caused by the difference of value between the bullion and the 
coined dollar which, not being convertible into or redeem- 
able by a gold dollar, could under no circumstances be equal 
to a gold dollar, until by world action and convertibility the 
silver in the silver dollar throughout the world should be 
equal to the gold in the gold dollar. 

The only effect of free coinage of silver and making it a 
legal tender of the United States would be, as I have before 
said, to depreciate the value of all obligations, both govern- 
mental and individual. In the first place, such descent to 
the silver basis would wonderfully contract the aggregate 
value of the currency — I mean its power and capacity to 
carry on the business of the country. Suppose such policy 
should appreciate the value of silver little or nothing, which 
I think would be the case, then our six hundred and twenty- 
five millions of silver would be reduced half in value; our 
six hundred and twenty-five millions of gold would leave the 
country and go where it had full appreciation; our six hun- 
dred millions of paper money, being redeemable in coin, 
would be redeemed in silver; so that our eighteen hundred 
millions of currency would be reduced to one-third its value 
and to one-third its power and capacity to do business — and 
all this would take place before any free currency act could 
be passed and put in operation. What immense damage and 
loss to the business of the country it would cause, no mind 
can adequately predict. Suppose, however, that finally, af- 
ter disaster and loss, after repudiation of debts and national 
dishonor and shame, we were adjusted to a silver basis, what 

C 98 ] 



would be the result? What benefit would it be to the na- 
tion? Would it make us any richer to call fifty cents a dol- 
lar? Would it add anything to the real capital of the 
country? If it did, then it would be still better to call ten 
cents a dollar, and get nominally five times as much money 
for our commodities. 

The great body of our people are laborers. Let us see 
how it would affect them. When the currency is depreci- 
ated, the price of commodities rises in a great deal higher 
proportion than wages; wages are the last to rise, and always 
rise m less proportion than commodities. The history of 
our greenback inflation period, during and after the war, 
proves this, according to the Congressional report of 1893' 
I will not weary you with detail. Commodities in the aver- 
age rose about twice the per cent, that wages did. Now, let 
us see whether an increased employment would follow the 
free coinage of silver. Wages, like all other things, are con- 
trolled by the law of supply and demand. The capital to be 
employed in production is the wages fund, for all the ele- 
ments of the cost of production can finally be resolved into 
wages. This capital makes the demand for wages; you can- 
not absolutely increase the value of wages except by increas- 
ing the amount of capital. Calling fifty cents a dollar does 
not increase the amount of capital in the said piece of money 
But there is a more important phase. The currency is but a 
small proportion of the capital of a country, credit composes 
a very large part of the capital and, consequently, of the 
wages-fund. In fact, about ninety per cent, of transactions 
are settled by some form of credit, and from five to ten per 
cent, by money. As civilization advances, as men are 
brought nearer together by railroads, telephones, telegraphs 
and steamships, as knowledge and confidence of man in man 
increases; m fine, as civilization progresses, credit more and 
more will predominate in the transactions of the world 
Now without increased capital, which consists of both money 
and credit, we cannot have increased wages or increased em- 

[ 99 ] 



ployment. Free Silver diminishes the amount of capital by 
driving out the gold, by lessening by one-half the value of 
our silver money already coined, and of the paper now in 
existence which will then be based upon the silver dollar, be- 
sides reducing in a far greater degree the amount of credit 
capital; for when uncertainty and distrust prevail, credit dis- 
appears. So that relatively even after we get adjusted to 
the silver basis, wages, compared with the present, will de- 
preciate in value. 

The countries which have the greatest capital employ the 
most labor and pay the highest wages. The laborer will be 
the most hurt by the free coinage of silver. In fine, it is a 
scheme which will pay him off in fifty-cent dollars, and by 
crippling the industries of the country will make less demand 
for his services, and consequently give him less employment. 
One gentleman of my acquaintance, who is a finely educated 
mathematician, is for Free Silver in behalf of the farmer for 
the sole reason that it will enable him to pay off his laborers 
so much the more cheaply. 

I heard Governor Stone of Missouri (and by the way up 
to this time it has been the only speech I have heard in the 
campaign) speak here the other day, and I propose now to 
answer his two or three principal points made on the finan- 
cial issue. His points were, first, that we are big and great 
enough to have our financial system as we wish, independent 
of the action of other nations; secondly that, as silver depre- 
ciated on account of demonetization in 1873 ^Y ^^^ United 
States, therefore the restoration of free coinage would ap- 
preciate the silver dollar equal to the gold dollar; and lastly 
that, as all parties had called for an international agreement, 
therefore the gold standard was wrong. 

Legislation cannot abolish any of the laws of nature or of 
science. All the legislation in the world cannot make Stoner 
Creek run up stream, or make a body fall from the earth in- 
stead of to it. No legislation can alter the law of value; 
absolute value is controlled by the law of supply and de- 

[ 100 ] 



mand, and legislation can only affect value as It may affect 
either supply or demand, or both. Law can make a thing 
legal tender for debt, but It cannot arbitrarily add anything to 
the value of the legal tender by Its fiat. We, sound money 
men, are no more intrinsically for gold than for silver or iron 
or any other commodity, but we simply demand, as a condi- 
tion precedent to commercial greatness and progressive civili- 
zation and to good faith and morality, that we have a cur- 
rency of stable value. We would use all of the gold and sil- 
ver possible consistent with the great object of a stable cur- 
rency. We know that the free coinage of silver at the ratio 
of 1 6 to I will give us a depreciated monometallic silver cur- 
rency of very fluctuating quality. We do not object to sil- 
ver; we do demand that Its use shall not destroy the gold part 
of our currency, and that it shall be used only In such a way 
as to produce true Bimetalism. 

A great many sound money men believe that silver could 
be freely coined. If there was an International agreement by 
all the prominent commercial nations to that effect, and they 
believe that the large demand so made for silver In that way 
would appreciate its value up to gold. This Is a very doubt- 
ful proposition and purely speculative. Under our present 
system a very large amount of silver, fifty times as great a 
quantity as was used before the act of 1873, Is thus used now, 
an amount representing in value twice the same amount of 
silver under free coinage at 16 to i. In fact, the gold stand- 
ard countries are using more silver than they did under free 
coinage. 

The only factor In the public mind, without It the move- 
ment would have no strength. In favor of free silver at the 
present time Is the low price of commodities and the de- 
pressed condition of business. 

Let us analyze these matters a little. Wheat, corn and 
land have depreciated In value. In the first place, we claim 
the free silver agitation has done much to depress business. 
Secondly, the great activity In the Invention of labor-saving 

.[ 101 ] 



machinery and the too rapid extension of the railroad system 
to the cheap lands of the world also have had a hand in this. 

First as to the Free Silver agitation: John Stuart Mill 
has substantially said that the aggregate circulation of cur- 
rency, that fixes prices any given time, is the amount of 
money multiplied by the rapidity of its circulation in the 
given time, plus the amount of all the varied forms of credit 
used in settling transactions multiplied by their average ra- 
pidity of circulation. The aggregate of both is the total 
amount offered for commodities and services during the 
stated period. Now in the United States and England and 
the most civilized states, the credit forms vastly predominate 
in amount. In the United States and England the credit 
forms make probably about 90 per cent. Suppose the money 
part of the above to remain the same, can any one deny the 
vast contraction of the credit part produced by the Free 
Silver agitation? Such contraction is just as efficient in re- 
ducing prices as a contraction in the money part of the 
circulation. 

Secondly, as to the extension of the new railroads into the 
cheap lands of the world. In Manitoba, in Argentina, 
Siberia, Australia and Africa, railroads have opened up new 
lands with cheap transportation for wheat, corn, cattle, etc. 
Also cheap ocean transportation has been found, by which 
these articles from the cheap lands of the world can advan- 
tageously compete In the European markets with our surplus, 
the price of which controls our home prices. 

We cannot repeal the law of supply and demand. We 
must compete with these countries of cheap lands and labor. 
Free Silver will only handicap us in that competition, its only 
advantage among many burdens being the fact that it would 
cheapen labor. But, with our universal suffrage, to degrade 
labor is to degrade our government, because our liberty and 
institutions rest upon the intelligence and reasonable content 
of the laboring masses who are in a vast majority. 

The effects of free coinage, to sum up, would be to impair 

[ 102 ] 



the obligations of contracts; to allow the debtor to cheat his 
creditor; to hurt the orphan, the Savings-bank depositor, the 
pensioner, the great body of the people, the laborers; to hon- 
estly help no one; to make a deadly breach in the national 
credit; to damage all business; to immensely contract, for a 
long time at least, the currency and the ability of the country 
to do business; and, finally, to frighten foreign capital, to 
do no one substantial good, but to fasten upon the country a 
system, adopted by only semi-civilized nations; all, in truth, 
an encouragement to demagogues to start new agitations for 
new breaches of national faith. Free Silver failing to give 
the required relief and be a panacea of all ills, we should 
then have the campaign for an irredeemable paper currency, 
until finally we rushed upon financial disaster and destruction. 

There is another point in the Chicago platform that I 
shall refer to before I close, and it is even worse than the 
free coinage of silver at i6 to i. I mean the riot clause. 
In this great country governed by the people, with free suf- 
frage for every male over twent>'-one, our greatest danger is 
not directly the chance of despotism, but the reckless spirit of 
disregard for law and order. In this country we have no 
king by divine right to rule over us and to give authority to 
his mandates; but the law must be king, and, unless it is en- 
forced and revered, anarchy and chaos await us. Despotism 
would be welcomed for security. Our road to despotism is 
through lawlessness and anarchy. Cleveland performed 
only his constitutional and necessary duty in Chicago. He 
interposed only to enforce the National laws when violated. 
That act I approved more than any other act of his adminis- 
tration. For the Democrats to condemn such action — and 
the Chicago platform can mean nothing else — is to lend itself 
to the cause of anarchy, and finally of despotism. 

Nations are like individuals. To the individual comes 
times of trial and temptation. How often, when the burden 
of doing right and meeting manfully our varied obligations 
is upon us, the tempter whispers to us of some seemingly 

[ 103 ] 



easier course, some evading of moral obligations, some cheat- 
ing of him who, we think, can afford to stand it. Resist such 
blandishments. Bravely meet our duty, and our character 
becomes strengthened and conscience approves. Give way, 
and the first step is taken that leads to moral destruction and 
ruin. 

So with the nation. As a nation, first let us be honest, 
because it is right; finally, we will find it the best policy also. 
Should we now give way to the specious pleas of the dema- 
gogue, Ave will not be able to refrain from taking the next 
step. The road to Avernus is easy, and easier as step by step 
we descend. Repudiation and riot now, next anarchy and 
communism, for security and rest, despotism. I have too 
much confidence in the intelligence and virtue of the Ameri- 
can people to believe that such is to be our fate. No! In 
this land I hope is fated to live liberty and law, security and 
order, freedom and justice. I believe the divine fiat has 
gone forth and the forces of repudiation, riot and disorder 
are doomed. The founders of the republic have not 
founded it in vain. Law and order, liberty and justice, shall 
rule. 



CAUSE OF THE SPLIT IN THE DEMOCRATIC 

PARTY. 

From the Lexington Herald, June 27, 1902, 

Please permit me a few words about a matter that has 
been discussed in the columns of your paper, in the Courier- 
Journal, and doubtless, in other prominent papers of the 
country, viz. : The responsibihty for, and the causes of, the 
split in the Democratic party on the issue of the free coinage 
of silver. The Courier- Journal has held that the split could 
have been prevented by proper action on Mr. Cleveland's 
part — at least, such has been the impression made upon our 
minds by reading its editorials. Even the Herald, though a 
friend of Mr. Cleveland, has held that a lack of a certain 
tact and diplomacy on his part, in his relations with the 
Democratic members of the two Houses, probably contributed 
considerably to such result. We believe that Mr. Cleve- 
land's actions neither materially aided such division of the 
party, nor could his efforts, however exerted, have prevented 
such division. 

We believe in the science of sociology: that every move- 
ment in a society or nation has adequate causes just the same 
as every phenomenon in the physical world; in fine, that no 
effect in either is without its efficient causes or antecedents. 
The action of a people or party, in the average and in the 
long run, especially where universal suffrage rules, can rise 
no higher than the average intelligence of the units endowed 
with such suffrage. The same is true of a government of a 
nation, or of a party, in regard to any particular question 
when such question is emphasized and made an important 
issue. 

In all eras and in all countries, the economic fallacy of 

[ 105 ] 



curing bad times by a resort to inflation of the currency, even 
though that inflation be with bad or a wholly or partly fiat 
currency, has been wonderfully attractive to those not well 
versed in economic science. To be able to resist such falla- 
cious temptation requires, in times of great commercial de- 
pression, on the part of the individual, a considerable educa- 
tion in the science of political economy, or a very thorough 
and practical acquaintance with the subject of banking and 
general business. A man may be well informed in other re- 
spects and be very deficient in his knowledge of political 
economy. The natural tendency of the mind uneducated in 
financial matters, as all history shows, is to freely accept the 
fallacies of inflation and fiat moneyism. The tendency be- 
comes very strong in times of great depression, when prices 
are low and money seemingly scarce — and such tendency is 
much aggravated by the violent and passionate appeals of 
selfish demagogues. 

Now, what were the conditions in 1896? It was a time 
of great business depression. Prices of all products were ex- 
ceedingly low. A large number of Democratic politicians, 
some selfishly, some honestly, were actively preaching the 
merits of free coinage of silver as the panacea for all our 
business ills, and to a constituency who were sorely distressed 
and in their misery anxiously seeking for some remedy for 
their grievous condition. A vast majority of the Demo- 
cratic voters in the South and extreme West were not trained 
to a proper understanding of political economy, and were 
made, by the prevailing business depression, prone to accept 
any possible remedy. This feeling that was aroused was 
much inflamed by the constant and vehement assertion, by 
demagogues, that the sound money movement had for its 
purpose the enslavement of the people by capital. 

The Democratic politicians who had the proper economic 
training or knowledge, knowing all these facts, after some 
active effort thoroughly understanding the utter hopelessness 
of educating the public sentiment of the party under such 

[ 106 ] 



adverse conditions (for the principles of solid finance are a 
science not to be easily mastered), finally either stuck to their 
convictions, and necessarily retired from political activity; 
or else, actuated by less earnest convictions, or by a slighter 
appreciation of the importance of the question, waived their 
objections and more or less passively went with the majority.' 
We hold that these general conditions, so briefly stated, 
in spite of anything that Mr. Cleveland either did, or could 
have done, inevitably produced the split that occurred; and 
that the want of sufficient economic training in the great 
masses of the party in the West and South, under the great 
stress of the financial depression, necessarily brought about 
these results. The same tendency was at one time shown in 
regard to the greenback question. The very fact that the 
Democratic voters in the South and West were In the average 
men of a good deal of education and information and habitu- 
ated to a more or less extent to think and decide for them- 
selves, contributed to the final result. Had they been like 
the mass of the negroes, led by a few men, they might have 
been managed by such authority to accept either side of the 
issue. But the fact of their manhood and independence of 
character gave positive force and vitality to their choice and 
prevented them from being led or influenced by outside lead- 
ers. One may well ask why was not the Republican party 
necessitated by the same conditions into the same lines of 
action. Simply because in the North and Central West, 



'To quote from a further discussion written by Mr. Clay: "It is absolutely 
necessary that a person be well grounded in the simple and elementary theories 
of finance and value. No science so affects and underlies nearly all questions of 
vital legislative enactment, and none should be more studied by the politician and 
statesman. How great a lack of knowledge of the simplest and plainest truths of 
the science is continually shown by our Senators and Representatives! In fact, 
for one of them to have such knowledge is the exception rather than the rule. Very 
likely our republican form of government with universal suffrage is to blame for 
it. The Representative caniiot in the average rise above the average of his con- 
stituency in his ideas and views. He may far exceed their average in ability, but 
finds it as a necessity to his continuance in political life to faithfully represent his 
constituency's views, passions and prejudices, and more especially the last. So 
knowledge that is not shared by the majority of his constituents is more in the 
nature of a burden than a benefit to the active politician. So after all in all 
probability the only way reform in this matter can be brought about, will be by 
the slow and gradual process of a general education of the great mas.ses of the 
voters in regard to these subjects. .^s the people generally realize the importance 
of these principles, they will gradually enforce upon their political representatives 
the necessity of having a like knowledge." 

[ 107 ] 



where the influential members of the party reside, a greater 
commercial and a more complicated business activity has 
given a better understanding and appreciation of the supreme 
importance of a standard of value of the greatest possible 
stability. In other words there has been a better training, in 
the average, of the people in financial matters. Also the fact 
that these sections had accumulated much more capital, not 
so much in land but in forms to be much affected by a deterio- 
rated and debased legal tender currency, no doubt, enhanced 
the importance to them of a stable standard of value. 

Let no one suppose that we cast any aspersions on the 
general intelligence or the political honesty of the Democrats 
of the South and West. Political economy is a science and, 
like all other sciences, has to be studied to be understood. 
This is a day of subdivision of labor, research and attain- 
ment. It is no reflection on a man's general intelligence and 
character, that he does not understand chemistry. It is cer- 
tainly no aspersion on a great editor's intelligence that he has 
to consult a lawyer as to his lawsuits; and so it is as to any 
particular science. Finally the fact that the South and West 
in the average did not possess the knowledge of finance, pos- 
sessed in the average by the North and the East, does not 
mean that their general intelligence and faculties are any less, 
but are simply developed in other directions according to 
their environment and necessities. 

We are no hero worshipper, and believe that at least in 
our day and generation, where so many men are equipped to 
do their own thinking, and where the forces of civilization 
are so many and complicated, that individual men count for 
but little, and that the mighty forces that work our weal or 
woe are the accumulated power of millions of minds in the 
past and present, combined with the impulses that continu- 
ally spring from environment and ever changing physical 
conditions. 



WHY CONSERVATIVE DEMOCRATS SHOULD 
VOTE FOR TAFT.i 

We have been asked why we support Taft and oppose 
Bryan. We have two controlling reasons why, as sound 
money conservative Democrats, we cannot support Bryan. In 
the first place, we believe one of the greatest dangers to our 
country in the future is the continuous growth and develop- 
ment of socialistic and communistic influence. The great 
fight of the future is, we fear, with Socialism. We believe 
Mr. Bryan's views, in spite of his personal denial to the con- 
trary, which is now necessary to hold conservative votes, 
advance the cause of Socialism and lead gradually to a Social- 
istic republic. We believe in our form of well balanced, 
constitutional, representative government, in which individ- 
ual rights are amply guaranteed and protected, and individ- 
ual development promoted. We consider an absolute or 
unlimited democracy no better than a one-man despotism; 
nay, even worse, for the despotism of the mob is worse than 
that of one man. The Democracies of the past illustrate the 
evils of unbridled democracy in which there is no check, on 
the instant will of the mere majority. The great glory of 
our forefathers of the Revolution, in establishing our form 
of government, was that, while they preserved the spirit and 
substance of democracy, they imposed checks and restraints 
upon the will of the mere majority, so that its sudden injus- 
tices, passions and instabilities were eliminated, and its final 
will tempered down to justice and wisdom. They divided 

' Written and circulated privately as a pamphlet, and later, by request, as a 
campaign document in the Presidential contest of 1908. This and the newspaper 
article that follows in answer to Judge Lindsay were published with the anonymous 
signature, "Const-rvative Democrat." 

[ 109 ] 



the delegated powers of the National Government (and 
about the same way in regard to the undelegated, of the 
States) into three equal and independent departments, and 
provided that neither of these should exercise any of the 
powers of either of the others. As you well know, these de- 
partments are the Executive, Legislative and Judicial, The 
Legislativ^e department was divided into two bodies, elected 
for a different term and by a different constituency, each hav- 
ing a veto upon the other. Also the Executive was given a 
qualified veto in legislative matters. In addition they gave 
to the courts the duty, among other things, of keeping all 
within their constitutional limits, and above all they placed a 
written constitution in which certain rights of the individual 
and the states were placed above the power and control of 
any or all of these departments, or that of any mere major- 
ity. As a matter of course, there was a way prescribed in 
which this constitution could be amended. As a conse- 
quence, we have a stable and well regulated liberty. Any at- 
tempt to break down these guarantees and balances can lead 
only to a less stable and less protected liberty for the indi- 
vidual. The individual needs less the power, along with 
mob, to impose upon others, than protection in the enjoy- 
ment of his rights of life, liberty and property. We take it 
that the two candidates for the Presidency, in their views, 
opinions and characters, are mainly their own platforms, and 
the mere formal platforms to catch votes are far less impor- 
tant. As illustrations of Mr. Bryan's tendencies toward 
Socialism and the breaking down of Individualism are his 
views in favor of governmental ownership of railroads, his 
Initiative and Referendum, his election of Senators by popu- 
lar vote, his governmental guarantee of Bank Deposits, his 
breaking down of the powers of the courts in limiting their 
power to punish for contempt, and other opinions of the 
same kind. We have not space to elaborate these points, but 
their tendencies are apparent. 

We will now proceed to our second point, viz. : that Mr. 

[ 110 ] 



Bryan's election threatens the business stability of the coun- 
try and its prosperity. In 1896 he was a rampant Free Sil- 
ver advocate, claiming that the fate of the country depended 
upon the success of his propaganda, and that the direst conse- 
quences would follow any other course. Among other fool- 
ish things that he proclaimed, he declared that Wheat and 
Silver kept together in value, and that, if Free Silver did not 
prevail. Wheat would never again rise above fifty cents per 
bushel in value. He made other as foolish and equally as 
fallacious prophecies. The trouble with Mr. Bryan was 
that he had never studied real Political Economy, and all his 
views on business questions were more or less poisoned with 
the fundamental fallacy that the fiat of the government made 
value, whether it promised to pay in something valuable or 
not. All his views on political economy and business are 
more or less vitiated by this fallacy of governmental fiatism 
and, should he be right on any such question, it would be 
more in the nature of an accident than from the force of 
sound reasoning. 

In other words, from our past experience of him, we 
have no confidence in his judgment about business questions, 
and if he should be elected President, we very much fear that 
some financial crisis would arise, to meet which a well trained, 
economic judgment would be required, and in which Mr. 
Bryan might be found lamentably lacking. What would Mr. 
Bryan do, for instance, if he had to meet the situation that 
confronted Mr. Cleveland's second administration when he 
had to sell bonds for gold to support the credit of the coun- 
try? Again, there is a great difference between Mr. Bryan's 
views about the regulation of corporations and Judge Taft's, 
and we again take Mr. Bryan's views before his nomination 
and not the platform. Judge Taft, fully appreciating that 
large aggregations of capital are inevitable results of our ma- 
terial, mechanical and scientific development, necessary also, 
in order to produce, manufacture and transport as cheaply as 
possible in order to successfully compete with the other na- 

[ in ] 



tions in the markets of the world, where our continually in- 
creasing surplus must be sold, yet at the same time under- 
stands and is much impressed with the abuses that have arisen 
under this system, and he believes in regulating these corpora- 
tions to effectually prevent these abuses and to protect the 
public, and at the same time to give reasonable justice to the 
corporation. This is what may be appropriately called Con- 
structive Regulation. This in the long run is in the interest 
of both the public and the corporation. It takes from the 
Socialist his main argument in favor of his system, the ex- 
cesses and abuses of the corporate power, and insures to the 
public the advantages without the abuses of the system. Mr. 
Bryan, on the other hand, in one of his speeches after his 
return from Europe, declared that the man who advocated 
the regulation of trusts and monopolies (and he has never 
clearly defined them, and the natural inference is that he 
meant all large corporations) was the enemy of the people, 
and instead of being regulated they should be destroyed. 
This might appropriately be called Destructive Regulation. 
The difference between these two positions is as wide as the 
poles are apart. Nearly every man is for some sort of regu- 
lation of corporations, but the greatest difference of opinion 
is embraced in the wide range of possible regulation. Mr. 
Bryan and his friends are fond of confusing these distinc- 
tions, and thus improperly classing Roosevelt and Bryan to- 
gether, in order to give respectability to the latter's opinion, 
heretofore so discredited before the business world. Now if 
the commencement of constructive regulation of corporations 
by Roosevelt, as many claim, helped to bring on our recent 
panic and financial depression, what, in all probability, would 
the carrying out of the destructive regulation of corporations 
and business under Bryan produce? Surely, one of the worst 
and most prolonged financial depressions that ever afflicted 
this country. Right here let us say a word in regard to 
labor. The laborer is more interested than the members of 
any other class in the smooth running of the financial system. 

[ 112 ] 



Only when business is prosperous, and capital not intimidated 
and driven to cover, is employment general and the laborer 
not out of a job. Any financial jar or depression curtails pro- 
duction and takes away employment from the laborer When- 
ever the greatest amount of production or work is to be done 
the competition for labor is the greatest, and wages the high- 
est and employment continuous and certain. It is far better 
for the laborer by good wages and continuous employment to 
have no occasion to strike, than to be slightly aided, if at all 
in a strike, by weakening the power of the courts to protect 
the rights of life, liberty and property. Labor certainly 
cannot afford to stand the crude and radical experiments 
ot Mr Bryan in business matters, and their certain and 
inevitable results, disaster and curtailing of wages and em- 
ployment. 

Considering these points, which we have very briefly dis- 
cussed, we cannot, as conservative Democrats, support Mr 
Bryan. Mr. Watterson says, if he can support Mr. Bryan 
he does not see how any other Democrat can refuse to do so' 
We refer to this simply because he asks the question He 
tells in an editorial that his paper lost $500,000 by the cam- 
paign It made against Bryan in 1896. It is evident that the 
paper cannot well stand another such loss. The constituency 
of the Couner.Journal is mainly Democratic, and not to sup- 
port Bryan would entail a great financial loss upon the paper 
Hence the business interest of the paper requires its present 
course and, while Mr. Watterson may be very conscientious 
in his present advocacy of Mr. Bryan, still there is also a 
compelling business reason. With a good many of us it 
IS different. With a much less strain upon our business inter- 
ests, we can act independently. We desire to claim no extra 
virtue, but simply to explain the difference of the strain and 
temptation in our respective cases. Some one will say as 
tariff reformers, how can you support Mr. Tafr, more or 'less 
a Protectionist ? Mr. Bryan has never seemed to attach much 
importance to tariff reform, completely shelving it as an issue 

[ 113 ] 



in 1896. To show how little he has studied the question from 
an economic and philosophic standpoint, the other day, when 
he made his tariff speech, he never even referred to the eco- 
nomic argument against protection — the one made by all the 
great political economists as the only one that is comprehen- 
sive, logical and conclusive, viz., that all trade between two 
or more parties depends fundamentally, as certainly as the 
flow of water or gravity, upon a difference of relative effi- 
ciency in producing the commodities mutually exchanged; 
and that, consequently, any curtailing of the freedom of ex- 
change necessarily results in a loss of efficiency in both the 
capital and labor employed; and the greater the interference, 
the greater the loss to both. We have no time but to barely 
hint at, or suggest this argument. All the students of politi- 
cal economy will understand. As a matter of course, any 
theory has to be applied practically with a due regard to the 
existing facts and conditions of the situation. So we take it, 
as tariff reformers, we cannot expect much from a Presiden- 
tial candidate who does not even seem to understand the eco- 
nomic argument in favor of tariff reform, and who, in his 
previous races, has always sidetracked this true Democratic 
issue in favor of some false or Socialistic program, and also 
upon whom finally the responsibility for the defeat of tariff 
reform, as advanced by Cleveland, Carlisle, Wilson, Watter- 
son, Breckinridge and others, after Its partial victory in the 
Wilson bill, rests more heavily than upon any other. For he 
put it aside at its almost successful culmination, giving up the 
true faith for false gods, when we might have won; and a 
great part of the education of the people made by those great 
men, at the most strenuous exertion of their best talents, was 
lost. 

In addition and conclusion, as between Taft, with his 
conservatism, patriotism, enlightened independence and 
splendid executive equipment, and Bryan, with his pleasing 
and engaging personahty, magnetism and splendid stump ora- 
tory, but unsound business views and apparently plausible 

[ 114] 



and insinuating demagogism, the choice of the Conservative 
Democrat should be plain. The only way to rescue the Demo- 
cratic ship from the shoals of Socialism and business uncer- 
tamty and disaster is to repudiate the captain who is guiding 
the ship upon these shoals. 



COxNSERVATIVE DEMOCRAT, IN ANSWER TO 
JUDGE LINDSAY. 

" 'Conservative Democrat/ zvhose recent pamphlet, printed for 
private circulation among his personal friends in an adjoining county, 
the Leader took the liberty of reprinting, has written a strong reply 
to Judge William Lindsay's Lexington address of last Monday, and 
has followed it up with convincing affirmative arguments in favor of 
the election of Judge Taft. The writer, as the Leader explained be- 
fore, is one of the most eminent citizens of Kentucky, a man zvho has 
held high political position; and his appeal to conservative Democrats 
to continue their attitude of hostility to Bryan and Bryanism has 
attracted wide attention." — The Lexington Leader, Oct. ly, iQoS. 

We have carefully read the Lexington speech of Judge 
Lindsay as published in the Herald, and would like to dis- 
cuss briefly the more important points made by him. His 
first contention, is that Roosevelt nominated Taft, and that 
without his aid Taft would not have been nominated, and that 
now Roosevelt is tr^'ing to elect him, all of which he claims is 
very wrong. As a matter of fact, Taft would hav^e been 
nominated without Roosevelt's aid. His prominence before 
the people as a wonderfully well equipped man for the Presi- 
dency would have nominated him. Roosevelt's assistance 
did good with some, with others it did injury. But surely with 
his tremendous margin of majority he would have been nomi- 
nated anyway. The office-holders in a majority of cases sup- 
ported him as they naturally should, he being in the public 
eye, and commending himself to them by his superior fitness 
and worth ; and that they did support him is to their infinite 
credit, as patriotism demands from them as from others that 
they make a conscientious selection to fill so important an 
office. As a matter of fact the office-holders, as in case of 
others, were divided in their choice, and no doubt many of 

[ 117 ] 



them did not support Taft. In our own State, Collector 
E. T. Franks and his corps of assistants favored Fairbanks 
and carried the Second District for him. 

That Mr. Roosevelt, with a most intimate acquaintance 
with Taft, should so warmly endorse him, is most assuredly 
a great testimonial in favor of his fitness for the place and a 
most approved guarantee that Mr. Taft is most loyally in 
favor of the great reform policies, but now only partially 
carried out, as advocated by Mr. Roosevelt, and deemed by 
him so essential to the welfare of the country. Mr. Roose- 
velt considers these policies but commenced, and well knowing 
the vast amount of stubborn opposition that they are to en- 
counter, deems it a matter of patriotic duty to do his best to 
fully execute this program in order to properly serve his 
country. Andrew Jackson, Jefferson and maybe others, have 
done the same without anything like equal justification. To 
say that Roosevelt, after his unselfish and patriotic renuncia- 
tion of the nomination and the Presidency, is now trying to 
enslave his countrymen, is to lend one's self to swell the 
clamor of selfish demagogues and reckless agitators. 

In regard to the injunction plank of the Democratic plat- 
form we have, in reply to Judge Lindsay,^ only one remark 
to make. As a justification of this plank he quotes the Ken- 
tucky law somewhat favoring this principle. Not to discuss 
the question, does not this illustration hurt rather than benefit 
the case? Is it not a fact, although we have able and honest 
judges, that nowhere else is the law as feebly and as tediously 
enforced as with us? Where is there less protection to life, 
liberty and property than in many parts of Kentucky? " I do 
not say that this Is solely attributed to this cause, but a large 
part of it may be. If our Judges cannot command respect 
for their courts except through the tedious and uncertain ac- 
tion of juries, a part of whom may be aiders and abettors of 

* Referring to the plank, adopted at Denver, to weaken the power of the courts 
to restrain by injunction. 

^ "Night-rider" outrages in the tobacco section, and feud lawlessness in the 
mountains were instances of all too recent occurrence. 

C 118 ] 



the very lawlessness that the Judges In the enforcement of the 
law are trying to suppress, then indeed is one of the causes of 
the continuances of such lawlessness explained. 

As to Judge Lindsay's scattering points on the tariff, we, 
ourselves tariff reformers, ask what are we to expect in the 
way of tariff reform from Mr. Bryan, a man who in his past 
canvass has always sidetracked this issue in favor of some 
populistic and visionary scheme, and who has shown by all 
his previous performances that he is utterly inadequate to han- 
dle properly any business question? With the Senate com- 
posed as it is, with a strong Republican majority, Taft can 
probably do more to reduce, in the average, the tariff than 
Bryan could possibly accomplish. Judge Lindsay's resent- 
ment at the passage of the Dingley tariff act, as a piece of 
treachery on the part of the Republicans to the gold Demo- 
crats, is a little out of place as regards himself, since he con- 
fesses that he did not vote for McKinley in 1896, but for 
General Palmer. He was only a half-hearted opponent of 
Bryan who cast a half vote against him. Had a few more 
"Half-Breeds," using a historical designation without any 
discourtesy to Judge Lindsay, whom we greatly esteem, voted 
as he did, Bryan would have carried Kentucky. A great ma- 
jority of the sound money Democrats, ourselves included, 
fully appreciating what we were doing and willing to take 
the consequences, voted for McKinley as a choice of evils, 
feeling that such action was demanded by patriotism and by a 
due regard for the welfare of our country. We might have 
had a right to complain about the tariff matter, but Judge 
Lindsay has not. 

The wisdom of our choice was fully justified by the re- 
sults. All the direful prophecies of Bryan were falsified and 
an era of unexampled prosperity followed. So, if we had it 
to do over again, under similar circumstances, we would cer- 
tainly vote so again. There would have been, however, one 
silver lining to the cloud of Bryan's election, had he been then 
successful. Bryan and Bryanism, having been actually test- 

[ 119 ] 



ed, would have been thoroughly eliminated from American 
politics; and the Democratic party, purified by trouble and 
disaster, would not now be afflicted by Bryan and Bryanism. 
As it was, Bryan's disastrous defeat expelled from public 
life, where political reputations are made, all Democratic 
Governors and United States Senators from the Northern 
States; and, as the Southern leaders were modest, this left him 
a perfect monopoly of leadership in the party to its harm and 
detriment. His theories not having been exploded by prac- 
tice, he can still claim that they were good. 

On the true question Judge Lindsay's objection to Roose- 
velt and Taft is not that they have tried to do too little, but 
too much, claiming that the National Government has only 
power to regulate when corporations engage in interstate 
commerce. In regard to his suggestion to put all trust-made 
and trust-used articles on the free list, such action would injure 
the weak along with the strong, and would be found almost 
impossible of practical application. Probably most of the 
largest trusts would not be at all affected by it. 

Having discussed the points made by Judge Lindsay 
against Judge Taft, we shall now very briefly give a few 
reasons why we oppose Mr. Bryan. 

First, we believe he is Populistic and Socialistic in his 
tendencies and sympathies, and we judge him not by the plat- 
form which was made to catch votes, but by his previous ut- 
terances which are more important, as they reveal the real 
man. As illustration of this, we refer to his governmental 
ownership of railroads, his initiative and referendum, his 
election of Senators by popular vote, his governmental guar- 
antee of bank deposits, his effort to weaken the power of the 
courts to punish for contempt, and thereby protect the rights 
of person and property, and his ceaseless efforts to array capi- 
tal and labor against each other. 

Secondly, we beheve his election threatens the business 
stability and prosperity of the country. In 1896 Mr. Bryan 
was a vehement and enthusiastic advocate of the free silver 

[ 120 ] 



program, making it substantially the sole issue of the canvass, 
and he claimed that the most disastrous and direct results 
would follow its defeat. He uttered all sorts of silly and fal- 
lacious prophecies of what would take place in case of the 
defeat of his predominant issue, all of which were proven 
false by events. Mr. Bryan, like a good many others who 
have never studied political economy and sociology or only 
superficially, is pervaded mentally by a governmental Fiatism 
or a supernatural belief in the efficacy of governmental say-so, 
that vitiates all his opinions on business questions and ren- 
ders them entirely untrustworthy. From our past experience 
of him, we have no confidence in his judgment of financial 
and social questions, and should he be elected President, we 
very much fear that emergencies would arise, that he could 
not, as President, wisely meet. 

In case of such a situation as arose in Cleveland's second 
administration, when in order to sustain gold payments, it 
was necessary to sell bonds for gold, what would Mr. Bryan 
do? We assume from his criticism of Cleveland and Car- 
lisle that he would not do as they did. To minds of men 
trained in finance and business the disastrous consequences of 
such action would be tremendous. Again, under similar cir- 
cumstances to those of 1896, would Mr. Bryan in the next 
four years still favor the free and unlimited coinage of sil- 
ver? As he has stated that a question is never settled until it 
is settled right; and as he has never in the slightest degree 
recanted, we certainly presume that he would. 

It has been Mr. Bryan's extreme good luck, as Governor 
Hughes of New York so well says, that his wild and vision- 
ary views of the last twelve years have not been practically 
tested. Had they been put in force, their calamitous and dis- 
astrous consequences would have completely eliminated Mr. 
Bryan from public notice. The probability of conditions be- 
coming under the hypothetical Presidency of Mr. Bryan, 
similar to those of 1896, would be very great, as his election 
and occupancy of the position would so disturb business as to 

[ 121 ] 



practically bring about a situation at least as bad, if not very 
much worse, than that of 1896. 

Again, the views of Mr. Bryan in regard to the regula- 
tion of corporations are fraught with immense danger to the 
business world. In one of his speeches after his return from 
Europe, he said that the man who spoke of regulating the 
trusts (and he has never clearly defined them, and the fair 
inference is that he means all large corporations) was the 
enemy of the people, and that instead of being regulated 
they should be destroyed. The makeshift and the compro- 
mises of the platform are a little different, but we consider 
Mr. Bryan's real views more important. An effort to carry 
out these views of Mr. Bryan would cause widespread dis- 
aster, and long continued depression to the business world. 
Business interests are so complicated and interwoven that any 
disaster to a large class of business would finally involve the 
whole financial fabric in depression and ruin. 

It is right here that the interests of labor are most con- 
cerned. The law of supply and demand applies to labor as 
to all other things, and the demand for labor can only be 
great and wages high when prosperity is general and capital 
fully employed as a wages fund and not intimidated and driv- 
en to cover. We take it that labor is more vitally concerned 
in the prosperity of the business world than any other class. 
While it may be very well, if this point of prosperity is as- 
sured, for labor to gain such other points in its favor as are 
not harmful in principle, still it is much better to secure pros- 
perity, good wages and continuous employment, than to risk 
all these in order to be slightly aided, if at all, in a strike, by 
breaking down the power of the courts to efficiently protect 
the rights of person and property. 

In consideration of these points we think all conserva- 
tive men, both business men and laborers, should vote for 
Taft. 

Judge Lindsay congratulates himself and the party upon 
a reunited Democracy under Bryan as its leader. We grant 

C 122 ] 



that a good many gold Democrats are now supporting the 
Bryan ticket. Among these are included a good many news- 
papers who do so, in many instances, from business necessity, 
their subscribers being principally so-called regular Demo- 
crats. Also there are a good many politicians, who cannot 
longer stand the strain put on them by principle and patriot- 
ism, without any hope of office to brace them up. Also, no 
doubt there are many who from their standpoint are doing 
their duty — for among intelligent men there are different 
points of view — and lastly, there are a good many who 
thoughtlessly or indifferently drift with the current. 

On the other hand there is a great band of independent 
thinkers and solid business men, who do not seek office, but 
are solely interested in the good of the country. Men, who 
consider party not as an end in itself, but only as a means to 
good government. These men do not have any confidence in 
Mr. Bryan, but from their past experience of him believe him 
a dangerous and socialistic agitator, whose election threatens 
great disaster to our country, and they do not propose to be 
Bryanized and give up life-long opinions and convictions for 
the sake of a name that no longer means Democracy as they 
have been taught it. 



SPEECH ON THE TOBACCO QUESTION, MADE 
AT PARIS, AUGUST 2d, 1909. 

I speak with reluctance on account of my physical condi- 
tion, but am impelled to do so by force of conscientious con- 
viction and the gravity of the situation. I believe that the 
movement,^ at least as far as white Burley is concerned, has 
been based upon a wholesale misrepresentation and exaggera- 
tion of the facts in the case, the speakers for the Equity being 
mainly politicians and not tobacco raisers, giving hearsay and 
imaginar}-^ figures and statements which, on account of the 
widespread intimidation, have not been answered and cor- 
rected by those who knew better. In fact, nearly all their 
prominent speakers of the last two years, who seemed to be 
so enthused with love of the farmer and tobacco raiser, were, 
in fact, as the result proved, simply running for Congress. In 
this campaign the speakers are, or have been, the salaried em- 
ployees and officers of the society. 

There is no commodity about which misrepresentation is 
easier than tobacco; the prices of different grades vary great- 
ly and the prices of the same grade vary at different times. 
Also the price varies greatly as between heavy winter order 
and summer order; so at any time by comparing the sale of 

^ The circumstances of the tobacco troubles of 1907-10 are too well-known in 
Kentucky to need repeating. To speak briefly, the Burley Society and the American 
Society of Equity were formed for the purpose of raising the price of tobacco, "in 
order to secure fair and remunerative prices to the growers." It was claimed by 
the advocates of the Equity that the Tobacco Trust, represented by the Continental 
Tobacco Company, had contrived to depreciate the price of tobacco and to defraud 
the grower of the just profits of his labor. The crops of 1906 and 1907 were 
pooled, and as a large amount of pooled tobacco was on hand and sold, that of 
1908 was cut out by an embargo of the Society on production, which caused 
much lawlessness and disorder. Many independent growers were either not financially 
able to stand the loss caused by the cut out of the crop, or else were not disposed 
to enter a combine of which they disapproved. Scraping of tobacco-beds, barn- 
burnings and the most flagrant outrages upon life and property were the result 
in the more lawless parts of the tobacco-growing section. The present speech was 
made at the Court House in Paris at a meeting of the Bourbon County growers. 
It was proposed by the Equity to pool the 1909 crop. 

[ 125 ] 



low grades with high grades, or the same tobacco at different 
times of the year, a person may honestly be greatly deceived, 
and how much more so, when there may be an intention to 
deceive and the reign of terror prevents any reply. 

As far as I can ascertain, and I have taken much pains to 
ascertain, the average price and the conditions of the farm- 
ers and tenants have been grossly misrepresented by the 
Equity orators. I, myself, have been a tobacco raiser for 
sixteen or seventeen years, growing each year several crops in 
partnership with tenants. To give the devil his due, candor 
compels me to state that I did not do well with tobacco until 
the Continental Company commenced to buy in this locality, 
not in any instance getting over eight cents, and generally 
far less, for my tobacco. So much were we discouraged that 
we turned two of our barns into cattle barns; but since then 
we have averaged over ten cents for our tobacco, have made 
big profit on our land and our tenants have done equally as 
well, making two or three times as much as they could have 
made in other business. 

We will give a detailed statement of prices later. Our 
tobacco was sold generally in the first half of January in our 
own barns, in heavy winter order, delivered at some near 
point without any expense whatever, except the slight one of 
hauling, and the payment was made immediately. Now, as 
one case does not make a rule, I have faithfully tried to find 
out prices received by others. My neighbors have generally 
done as well as myself, and some a good deal better. One 
tenant in the far end of the county has raised twelve crops, 
and nine cents was the least price and twelve cents the highest 
he received. Upon the most reliable information we can get 
from original sources — and in our anxiety to be accurate and 
do justice we applied to the Continental for its figures in 
Bourbon County — I estimate that for the last five or six 
years the average price for our county has been about nine 
cents per pound, and the most, far more than half, of this 
tobacco was sold in barn and hauled in loose order, without 

[ 126 ] 



other expense, to some near-by receiving point. Finally, I 
can truly say that no business in this section has ever before 
been as profitable to the farmer and tenant as tobacco raising 
for the period of the last six or eight years. As a matter of 
course there are some improvident men who save nothing 
however much they may make; but I assert that on land in 
any way suitable for tobacco the tenant has done far better 
than he could have done at any other business, and that 
tobacco land has paid the landlord, after charging up all 
expenses, from $50 to $85 per acre, and in like proportion 
the tenant. 

In a speech made here on this rostrum eighteen months 
ago opposing the cutting out of the 1908 crop, I stated that 
the facts, when truly understood, did not justify the pooling 
of the crop, and the only justification of the pooling of the 
crop was such a condition of the tobacco business as made 
pooling necessary in order to get a living price; that as the 
Burley Society was organized, its members scattered through 
many counties, and even states, with every possible dissimilar- 
ity of condition, financial and otherwise, it was utterly im- 
possible for them to act without friction, delay, negligence 
and favoritism, and that many and unexpected abuses would 
surely grow up. I stated that cutting out the 1908 crop 
threatened the peace and prosperity of the state; that, as it 
was a fact that not over half at most of the growers were in 
the pool, and that in order to make the movement of the mere 
cutting of the crop succeed, the remaining 50 per cent, of 
growers would have to be persuaded and intimidated; that it 
would be impossible for them to agree upon such a policy on 
account of dissimilarity of opinions, conditions and necessi- 
ties, some being able to hold their tobacco, some having to 
mortgage their crop before it was raised, and others in condi- 
tions too numerous to mention. Such agreement being im- 
possible, it then becomes necessary, in order to succeed, for 
various kinds of intimidation to be resorted to, mild and 
peaceful and law-abiding, but soon degenerating into vio- 

C 127 ] 



lence and lawlessness by the more ignorant and less restrained 
members of the pool. 

I stated then, eighteen months ago, that any policy that 
tended directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally, 
to violence and lawlessness, was to be condemned by all just- 
minded and patriotic persons. All our rights of life, liberty 
and property are based upon and made good by the enforce- 
ment of the law; and I could not see how any man, who is 
interested in the solid and true interests of the country, could 
countenance any policy that leads even indirectly, but in this 
case inevitably, to violence and disorder. Violence and dis- 
order, when once begun, breed numerous broods of progeny 
which not only affect the tobacco business, but every other in- 
terest of society; and no man may see the end of such feuds 
thus created. 

In addition to the above, I said at the same time, eighteen 
months ago, that, if the cutting out of the crop was effected, 
there would be three important results: First, it would en- 
courage the raising of tobacco in other sections of the coun- 
try beyond the influence and intimidation of the Equity 
Society; and there were various parts of the country where it 
could and would, in many cases of extra quality, in all proba- 
bility be raised, and we could do our tobacco interests here In 
Kentucky Incalculable damage by raising up formidable and 
dangerous competition by this short-sighted policy. 

Now, what was the result? All that I spoke of as pos- 
sible has come to pass, and this year's crop will be hard to 
sell on account of the great Increase of tobacco outside of our 
old Burley district. 

Secondly, I stated that the policy of the Burley Society 
would drive out of the state many of our tenants and the men 
employed by them, a great and undeserved hardship upon 
them. By permitting them to raise tobacco, a business in 
which they were very proficient and could earn two or three 
times as much as In any other business, a small quantity of 
land relatively could support a large number of them, while 

C 128 ] 



if they were forced to raise corn or other crops it would re- 
quire several times the number of acres to allow them the 
same profit, so that necessarily many would be forced to 
leave. Everybody knows that such was the result. 

Thirdly, I stated that it would bring on disorder and law- 
lessness throughout the Burley district. Such prediction has 
been amply verified. Brutal whippings, barn-burning and all 
sorts of outrages and even murder have been committed with 
impunity. All free speech on this question has been practi- 
cally denied r and any statement of Equity orators, however 
exaggerated or wild, has gone without any public denial or 
refutation, such impunity adding to the exaggeration and 
misrepresentation of such statements. 

Now from this date on I hope it will be very different. 
Let us see what are the financial results of pooling the 1906 
and 1907 crops, leaving out of account for the present all the 
other disastrous results of which I shall presently speak. Of 
the 1907 crop, giving way to the desires of two of my ten- 
ants in Bourbon County, we placed two crops, comprising 
twenty-four acres and thirty-three hogsheads, in the pool, 
three other tenants not going into it. Nothing is so deceptive 
as tobacco prices unless you know all the conditions and cir- 
cumstances. Twenty-seven hogsheads of this tobacco has 
been sold and 90 per cent, of the price paid us, and putting 
the other hogsheads at average price' the whole will average 
16.59 cents per pound. Now let us see what it will be when 
the proper reductions are made. I have heretofore, for the 
last eight years, usually sold my tobacco in the first half of 
January in heavy winter order in my barn, with the only ex- 
pense of hauling it in loose order to be delivered at some 
near point; and I shall compare prices upon the basis of sell- 
ing tobacco as usual to be delivered the 15th of January. As 

• In a further discussion of this subject it is said: "I wrote in February 1908 
a moderate and conservative article on the tobacco question, but was advised by 
discreet friends to whom I showed it that it would be foolhardy and unwise to 
attempt to publish it. Mr. Clift of Mason had the manhood and audacity to answer 

one of M — — 's numerous effusions, and the next night, so the newspapers 

stated, his tobacco-bed was scraped and a grave dug as a warning to him to forbear." 

[ 129 ] 



I was very anxious to be fair and right about this matter I 
showed my figures to the president of the Bourbon Equity 
Society, and he could make no valid objection to them. I do 
not wish to speak for the hour, but for tomorrow and the 
hereafter, and do not wish to take any advantage of the 
Society. I owned a third of this tobacco: 

THIRTY-THREE HOGSHEADS AND TWENTY-FOUR ACRES IN POOL OF 

1907 CROP. 

Sold 27 hogsheads, my third received $1,395.13 

Not sold, 6 hogsheads, my third put at average price. . 318.02 

Total received and estimated $1,713.15 

LIST OF EXPENSES. 

Insurance three times on one-third $1.50 for four 

months $45.00 

Prizing October 15, 1908, 12,200 lbs. at 50c. 

per cwt 61.00 

Storage at price fixed by Equity, 25c. per month 

on 11 hogsheads for 13 months 35.75 

Interest on the above 3 items until repaid by sale 

of tobacco, underestimated 3.00 

Total amount of expense 144.75 

Leaves after paying these expenses $1,568.40 

Interest at 6 per cent, on capital held in tobacco from 

January 15, 1908, to May 15, 1909 $116.18 

$1,568.40 minus $116.18, the value Jan. 15, 1908 1,452.22 

One-third of 24 acres equals 8 acres 1,452.22 

One acre 181.50 

Whatever may be received from lo per cent, reserve fund 
to be added. 

What my tobacco brought in previous years early in Jan- 
uary, in the average : 

[ 130 ] 



1902—10.40 per lb. ; per acre $180.77 

1903—10 plus per lb. ; per acre 209.97 

1904 — l\y2 and 12^^ per lb.; per acre, 3 crops average 

$218.09, and 2 crops $250.00 228.72 

1905—614 to 9^ per lb.; per acre, 3 crops $165.28, and 1 

crop $95.46 141.95 

1906—10^ per lb.; per acre, 3 crops $174.77, and 2 crops 

$176.34 175.39 

1907—1 1 }i per lb. ; per acre, 3 crops 228.47 

Average for 1902, 1903 and 1904 206.39 

What did the pooled crop, which sold at $16.59, bring 
January 15, 1908, the time I generally sell? 

In October an acre weighed 1,522^ lbs. 

An acre weighed Januar)' 15, 1908 (estimated) 1,800 lbs. 

Price, January 15, 1908 10.08 cts. 

Remarks on Calculation. 

The pool and crop was composed of one crop of eighteen 
hogsheads of strictly No. i quality, better than that sold 
for 12I/. cents, or .4; 2 5 0.00 an acre in 1904, being raised by 
same parties, and the balance of fifteen hogsheads was a fair 
crop of sound tobacco and good weight. The calculation of 
money received and expenses that were legitimate, and com- 
parison of January 15, 1908, with final value, were shown 
the Burley president for Bourbon County. Now, I claim 
that, if no part of the reserve fund is paid, this tobacco that 
sold for 16.59 cents in the pool only nets 10.08 cents on the 
15th of January, 1908, and also that this reduction of nomi- 
nal value not only refers to my crop, but to every crop in the 
pool, whether in the Blue Grass or elsewhere, and that every 
crop should be legitimately charged with the same percentage 
of expenses. It makes no difference whether the owner him- 
self furnishes all or a part of these items of expense, or he 
gets somebody else to do so; and I defy anyone to show that 
they are not equitable and necessary charges to be made in 

[ 131 ] 



any correct calculation, I have also a calculation made in a 
bill made out by the Equity on a 1906 crop in the pool. This 
crop of 3,120 pounds was appraised, when delivered to the 
Equity, at 17.30 cents per pound, or $540.67. The expenses 
charged by the Equity amounted to enough to leave the net 
amount to the owner $383.38. This tobacco was delivered 
to the Equity, February 25, 1907, and paid for at the end of 
two years, so far as I can determine from the account. Dis- 
counting $383.38 for two years, and it equals $342.30, 
which equals about 10.9 cents per pound. In this case all the 
reserve but ii^ cents was paid. So you can see how decep- 
tive the figures of the Equity are and how they give false im- 
pressions of value. 

Now, in regard to our pooled tobacco, after making the 
proper reductions, it amounts to only $181.50 per acre, or 
about 10.08 cents per pound, to be increased by any part of 
reserve that may be paid. As compared with other years, 
the average price per acre is a great deal less than the aver- 
age for the years 1904, 1903 and 1902 — that average being 
$206.39. These three years were before any pool had been 
formed, the first pool being on the 1906 crop. It is also a 
good deal less than the average for the six years of 1902 to 

1907- 

This calculation reveals another thing, that out of thirty- 
three hogsheads, six have not been sold and paid for. In 
general figures I have been told by the officers of the associa- 
tion that there were about 60,000 hogsheads in the 1907 
pool. Three-fourths of this was to go to the Continental, 
which paid promptly, and one-fourth to the Independents. 
Now, instead of calling at least for twenty-four hogsheads of 
our tobacco, they asked for twenty-three, leaving back ten, 
instead of nine hogsheads, as they should. Then, I under- 
stand, there were about 4,400 hogsheads allotted to the Inde- 
pendents, who failed to take it. On this basis not over three 
hogsheads of ours should have been left on hand unsold, in- 
stead of six. 

[ 132 ] 



I have in the last eight years dehvered my tobacco, and 
always immediately received payment. This pooled tobacco 
was sold last October or November, and yet not paid for. If 
I should individually have sold my tobacco last fall and not 
yet received payment for it, I think my friends should apply 
to the court to have me declared incapable of attending to my 
business and to have a trustee appointed to take charge of it. 

Notice one more thing about the calculation : That my 
tenants who did not go into the 1907 pool got more for their 
tobacco than those that did. Now, as we have shown that 
financially the pool was no such success as claimed for it, let 
us see what are the other results of the society's policy. In 
the first place, by cutting out the 1908 crop we have lost all 
profit that would have come from that crop, and the labor 
that would have produced it is to a great extent thrown out 
of employment, and in many instances forced to leave the 
state. Secondly, we have driven our largest and best buyer 
out of the state. The Continental Company had established 
warehouses at our county seats, so we could sell them our 
tobacco at home without the uncertainty and expense of ship- 
ping to far-off markets. They have sold out their property 
and left the state, so far as I know. I was talking the other 
day with one of our best farmers, and asked him if he had 
sold his grass seed by the territory ungathered. He replied 
that, as he had a son old enough to learn business, he could 
not afford to do so for fear that his son might do the same 
way. He was wise. Exercise develops faculty. I'he only 
way to keep up the character of our people in judgment, self- 
reliance and manhood is to give them the opportunity to exer- 
cise these qualities. By turning over our business to a commit- 
tee of managers, or maybe to one boss, as this new pledge in- 
dicates, we tend to make babies and weaklings of our people. 
There is no more certain and surer entering wedge to social- 
ism or communism. Another evil result of this Equity move- 
ment has been a substantial denial of free speech. Any policy 
must be fundamentally unsound that demands as one of its 

[ 133 ] 



necessities the suppression of free speech. Our colleges, 
schools and our various means of cultivating the mind are all 
intended to teach us to think for ourselves. In the conflict of 
reasonable debate and discussion error is gradually elimi- 
nated, and truth evoluted and strengthened. Any cause that 
will not submit to this test thereby confesses its weakness and 
unsoundness. Again, the policy of the Burley trust or society 
has very much increased the production of tobacco outside of 
our Burley district. Reports from Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, 
Ohio, West Virginia, Tennessee and also the outlying coun- 
ties of Kentucky, all speak of much increased production. The 
tenants and workers that you drove out last year are valuable 
assistants in this development. The extravagant figures of 
the Equity orators in regard to prices have, no doubt, very 
much aided this movement. The hen that laid the golden 
eggs has been badly crippled, if not killed. Again, whether 
intended or not, they have produced a crop of violence and 
lawlessness which has brought shame and humiliation on 
every patriotic Kentuckian as well as financial disaster, and 
which crop, I fear, may be perennial unless we arouse our- 
selves to a full realization of the situation and determine to 
take the necessary measures to extirpate it. The only reason 
why Bourbon County and a few other counties have escaped 
the most of this lawlessness has been the forbearance of the 
independent tobacco growers, and their refusal to exercise 
their legal rights in the control of their property and business. 
The Equity men were their friends and neighbors, and for 
once they were willing to help them out of the hole into which 
their policy had placed them. The Equity has even prosti- 
tuted, or attempted to prostitute, the legislation of the state 
by special acts to carry out their purposes of domination and 
despotism. By one bill they made a breach of contract a 
misdemeanor, in order to control with a rod of iron their own 
refractory members. By the McChord bill — one of the 
worst measures ever presented to a Kentucky legislature — 
they provided that no person or corporation could buy to- 

[ 134 ] 



bacco in Kentucky unless licensed to do so by a certain official 
or officials who, as a matter of course, were to be elected in 
the interests of the Equity, or, if not elected, to be so influ- 
enced. Every instinct of statesmanship and enlightenment was 
against this bill. What we need is more buyers, not fewer. 
If we had our choice, it would be much better to give a bounty 
to buyers instead of putting an embargo upon them. This 
bill, founded in folly and bigotry, was supported by the 
Equity Society and was personally urged by them upon the 
legislature, but after passing the House, was defeated by the 
hardest of work in the Senate. Any man who did not sup- 
port this bill was denounced as an enemy of the farmer and, 
in the reign of terror, many were intimidated. 

Now, how shall we sell without the pool? I admit that 
the Equity has made the conditions hard. If, as the Equity 
claims, the Continental has been making enormous profits, 
and this claim the government's investigation supports in 
part, then this very fact — and especially for the future, since 
the government has established a sufficient amount of the 
fact — is the best guarantee and security that the Continental 
will have competition in buying tobacco. There is no natural 
monopoly in manufacturing tobacco. With the great amount 
of capital in this country, seeking investment at low rates of 
interest, competition will spring up like the water in some 
great and everlasting fountain, whose flowing is rather in- 
creased than diminished by drawing the water from it. As 
a matter of fact, we have had more or less competition for the 
last six or eight years since the Continental commenced buy- 
ing in the country, sufficient at least to give us very profitable 
prices for our tobacco during that period. For about half of 
that time we have sold to the Independents. Should tobacco 
get too low, growers on land not suitable for tobacco, where 
the cost of production is relatively high — and this would in- 
clude probably a good deal of the new territory — will quit 
raising and thus reduce the supply and increase the price. If 
tobacco were to sell too high, so that the consumption at the 

[ 135 ] 



price would not take up the supply raised, then the accumulat- 
ing surplus would be a weight to finally break down the mar- 
ket. A fair price for a commodity is the average price at 
which consumption or the demand will take up the supply; 
if the price is too high or too low, the equalization process is 
bound to go on. "The mills of the gods grind slowly, but 
exceeding fine." 

These forces, embodying the law of supply and demand, 
work without cost or friction or violence or disorder. On 
the other hand, the artificial arrangement of the Equity works 
by the arbitrary dictation of an executive committee or presi- 
dent, taking a man's business out of his own hands; works 
with all sorts of costs for prizing, insurance, storage, interest, 
shrinkage, fees and salaries; works with all its bulldozing of 
individuals and attendant violence and lawlessness. Then, 
again, as a further means of protection against all trusts, the 
Continental, as well as the Equity, the last, however well in- 
tentioned by its founders, probably the worst trust we have 
ever had, let us send to the Legislature and to Congress, sen- 
sible, practical men, not demagogues, who will pass reason- 
able laws to regulate trusts. Trust-regulation is a very com- 
plicated matter, and even the best men at first and afterward 
will make mistakes, but let them profit by their mistakes and 
gradually, as taught by experience, evolute laws that will ap- 
proximately accomplish the purpose. Then let the people 
elect honest and fearless executive officers to enforce the law. 
But, to be honest, we must trust mainly to the law of supply 
and demand. 

The speakers on the other side, in regard to the new pool- 
ing pledge for the 1909 crop, give about the same reasons in 
defense of it that the Czar of Russia would give in justifying 
his refusal to grant further liberty to his parliament and his 
people. The details of this pledge will, no doubt, be thor- 
oughly discussed by Mr. Cantrill of the Equity Society. 

Now, in conclusion, I want to say I come here with a 
good many handicaps in the way of physical condition and 

[ 136 ] 



voice, but I come solely, if I know myself, in a spirit of 
patriotism. We are all frail. I can afford to speak the truth, 
for I want nothing. Mr. Watterson has well said that a man 
is only a free man when he wants nothing. My mind has 
been oppressed with a pall of apprehension and dread. I am 
afraid, if you sign this pledge and form this pool, that with 
the immense growing crop, especially a large part of it beyond 
the influence of the Equity, the society at the end of 1909 will 
find itself in exactly the same situation as in 1908. The Con- 
tinental will be able to get suflicient tobacco from various 
sources so as not to be forced to buy. 

The impunity with which you cut out the 1908 crop will, 
when you get again in the hole, encourage you to use the 
same plan again, and if you do, though I am a man of peace 
and law and will try to prevent any infraction of either, I am 
sure from my knowledge of human nature that the people will 
not again submit to having their legal and constitutional rights 
of attending to their own business in their own way denied 
them. The dreadful result of this conflict no man can pre- 
dict. That this apprehension is not chimerical is strength- 
ened by the fact that the new pledge provides for a perma- 
nent organization in the way of a stock company, with highly 
paid officials as a matter of course, whose self-interest will 
urge continuous activity, and who will very much increase the 
probability of the society's resorting to any means to avoid 
failure in their despotic plans. This apprehension, more 
than any question of price, has actuated me to come here to- 
day. 

Law and order, peace and good will, and the protection 
of our rights of life, liberty and property are above price. 



FURTHER DISCUSSION, AN ANSWER TO 
JUDGE O'REAR. 

From the Lexington Herald, Fall of igog. 

We have made only one speech on the tobacco question 
and it has served as a text for criticism and reply from the 
various speakers and writers in favor of the Equity Society. 
As we are not in physical condition to answer on the stump, 
even if we so desired, we have concluded to select one typical 
speech of Judge O'Rear, and very briefly reply to its main 
points. We choose the speech or speeches of Judge O'Rear 
because he is considered by the Equity men as their strongest 
advocate. Judge O'Rear depends mainly upon two points 
or premises in his argument. First, he claims that the area 
of Burley tobacco cultivation cannot substantially be in- 
creased, and that we will always control the supply. Secondly, 
that there is and will be substantially but one buyer, the Con- 
tinental Company. From these two premises he draws the 
conclusion that by pooling we can control the market and 
compel the one buyer to give what we demand. Now this 
argument refers only to the financial aspect of the question 
and ignores all social and moral considerations, a matter to 
which we shall refer later. 

In regard to his first premise, such assertion is denied by 
many facts. As a matter of course any extension of tobacco 
growing has to take place gradually, because barns have to be 
built and men trained to cultivate and especially to handle 
the tobacco. I claim, however, that such extension is taking 
place as fast as could be expected. 

A very reliable gentleman, an old citizen of Bourbon, on 
a visit to his old home, says that sixty new tobacco barns have 
been put up in his county in Missouri this year. A contract- 

[ 139 ] 



ing firm reports to one of our most reputable citizens that 
they have put 102 new barns this season in Western Mis- 
souri. 

A very rehable gentleman, and close observer, who is 
thoroughly acquainted with the whole tobacco business, and 
who has handled the Missouri tobacco for several years, and 
who, having made frequent trips to Missouri, is well and 
thoroughly acquainted with the situation there, says that he 
firmly believes that Missouri has as much good Burley to- 
bacco land as has Kentucky; that the quality of the tobacco is 
as good as the average Kentucky Burley and that the yield is 
generally higher. The only reason why production is not 
vastly greater Is the lack of barns and trained men. We hear 
substantially the same thing from all the surrounding states, 
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee and West Virginia. Even 
Alabama is sending good Burley to Louisville. 

In regard to Judge O'Rear's second point, that the Con- 
tinental is and will be our only buyer, while there are not as 
many independent manufacturing companies as we could 
wish — only 256 of them — still there have been enough to 
enable us to get good prices for the last eight years, during 
which time we made far more profit from tobacco than from 
any other produce of our land, and enough in all probability 
to insure good prices in the future. The extensive govern- 
mental Investigation, under Garfield, of the business of the 
Continental and the Independents, showing the amounts 
manufactured of each grade, the cost, selling price and profits 
— all showing a profitable business — will give security and 
confidence to the formation of a continuous series of new 
companies of Independents to reap profits far greater than in 
most other businesses. 

The two main premises of Judge O'Rear are therefore 
faulty and Inaccurate and, necessarily, his conclusions, how- 
ever logical his reasonings, must partake of the same defects 
probably many times multiplied. 

Judge O'Rear speaks like a man not well acquainted with 

[ 140 ] 



the practical facts of the tobacco situation, and the inherent 
weakness of such a pool as he advocates. Social and economic 
progress does not take place by abstract reasoning, but by the 
law of evolution, a continuous and gradual adjustment of the 
"status quo" to the environment of new conditions as they 
arise. 

A pool or combination, though naturally vicious in princi- 
ple, might from necessity be expedient in one case, and not in 
another, but the burden of proof is always against it. It 
might be economically worked without moral harm in some 
cases, when there was a substantial equality of conditions, in- 
telligence and limitation of members in numbers and terri- 
tory; and might work very badly on account of many abuses, 
when the facts are the reverse. 

So after all it is not a question of theory alone, but of 
practical information and knowledge. That the past two 
pools did not work well, and were comparatively a failure, at 
least in our district, is conclusively shown by the fact of the 
unwillingness of their former members to pool their present 
crop; and this is true, although the greatest pressure by the 
best speakers and writers has been exerted upon them to do 
so, and but very little has been said in opposition. A great 
deal of money, we think, has in this way been illegally spent 
by the Equity Society. 

The people now understand that the so-called "15 and 17 
cents per pound of the pooled tobacco" means only 10 or 11 
cents at the time the tobacco should be sold, viz., when 
stripped in heavy winter order and when free of the expenses 
of prizing, shrinkage. Insurance, storage, interest, bad man- 
agement and extravagance. They have no confidence in a 
management which spends, as they believe, their money ille- 
gally in new projects, to which they have not consented. 

They have no confidence in the impartiality or economy 
of a society which, they believe, so acts. The same sort of 
recklessness, they think, may be used to punish the enemies 
of the controlling power, or to reward Its friends, or for any 

[ 141 ] 



other purpose in the handling of the tobacco of the new pool. 

If they can and will, as we believe, illegally spend our 
money now, what security have we for the future that our 
property rights will be protected? 

Let us stop here for a moment in our argument and see 
what the Equity Society intends to reserve for what they call 
the cost of management. Let us suppose that they pay 80 
per cent of the 10 per cent reserve from the pool of 1907. 

$3.00 per hogshead on 52,000 hogsheads ( 1906) $156,000 

$3.00 per hogshead on 58,000 hogsheads (1907) 174,000 

1/4 P^r cent, reserve on 1906 crop 100,000 

2 per cent, reserve on gross proceeds (1907) crop 204,000 

Thirty cents per cwt. on 1907 crop received from buyers 

and not paid grovi'^ers 1 89,000 

Total $823,000 

Amount collected from 1907 crop $567,000 

The above is an estimate based mainly upon facts gotten 
from the officers of the society, and is as nearly accurate as 
we, without the books, can make it. For the 1907 crop this 
amounts to $9.77 per hogshead sold, not counting the inspec- 
tion fee of $2.00 which should be added. The amount now 
on hand must as a matter of course approximately be the 
above amount, less the amount of salaries, and expenses paid 
out and money due them but not collected. 

The point we make, is that the above money can only be 
used for the benefit of the pooled crops of 1906 and 1907, 
and each separately, and not for a new project or pool to 
which many of the subscribers of these two pools object. 

Let us now very briefly review the social and moral as- 
pects of the pool. In the first place, it is just as bad in morals 
for the Equity to combine to raise the price of tobacco, as it 
is for the Continental to conspire to lower the price to the 
farmer. The best lawyers with whom I have talked believe, 
that whenever the question upon its merits comes before the 

[ 142 ] 



United States courts, they will decide that the Equity is an 
unlawful combination. 

In all due respect to and faith in the integrity and great 
ability of our Kentucky court, the Federal courts still differ 
with it on the political economy of their decision. The judge 
who wrote the decision of our Kentucky court, in discussing 
the question, substantially said (for the quotation is from 
memory) : "If this society was a combination to raise the price 
or value of tobacco, then this combination would be illegal; 
but we hold that it is not a combination to raise the price of 
tobacco, but only to get a fair price for it," ^ 

Now by all the tenets of political economy as agreed to 
by all the writers, the value of a commodity is what it will 
bring in the market, and there is no other test. Any other 
test would confound intrinsic with commercial value, which 
last is the only one recognized by trade, commerce and the 
law. 

It follows, therefore, that any combination to raise the 
value or price of a thing above its then market value is a 
combination to raise the value and consequently illegal. 

Judge O'Rear speaks of this movement to form a pool 
as involving the recognition and establishment of some great 
principle necessary to human liberty and of the highest patri- 
otic character; when in fact it is vicious in principle, and great 
outrages upon the dearest and most cherished rights of men 
have been perpetrated by it heretofore, or at least have been 
its inevitable consequences. 

You would think from his grandiloquent references to 
the struggles in its behalf, comparing them with those of the 
Revolution, and other historic struggles for the liberty of the 
individual, the very liberty which this trust has ruthlessly 
violated, that some necessary principle in the wise extension 
of human rights was involved. In reality it is only a fight for 

* "The Legislature could not enact a law legalizing; a pool or combination of 
persons for the purpose of enhancing the cost of any article above its real value; 
yet it may legalize such pool or combination as is created or organized for the pur- 
pose of obtaining fair and remunerative prices." Opinion of Judge Carroll, Ken- 
tucky Court of Appeals, February 7, 1908. 

C 143 ] 



bossism and improper combination to help to put on others 
the very thing they object to in the Continental. No more 
convincing proof, if there was not a multitude of other proofs, 
of its demoralization upon the body politic, could be shown 
than the advice of our learned and most able judge — and we 
hope that he is incorrectly quoted, when in his speech at Car- 
rolton, August 21, he said in his peroration (I quote from 
the Herald of August 23) : "Make Kentucky strong, my fel- 
low countrymen. Stand shoulder to shoulder, and make this 
pool a success at all reasonable and moral hazards." 

If he said it — and we do him the favor of calling his at- 
tention to it, so he can correct it, if not correctly reported — 
we hope he did not realize its full import. But, if true, then 
can we not say that night-riding with all its dread results is a 
necessary result of this movement, when their ablest advocate, 
a judge of the Court of Appeals, uses such language ? To the 
patriotic citizen, who believes in the enforcement of the law 
as the basis of all our liberties, and that nothing good can 
come from lawlessness and violence, but only harm, the 
Equity pool does not appeal in the least, however strong may 
be the financial allurement — which is now weak — until the 
said society giv^es far better guarantee to keep the peace and 
to respect and support the enforcement of the law. 



OBJECTIONS TO THE PROPOSED CONSTITU- 
TIONAL AMENDMENT i ON TAXATION, 19 lo. 

"CM. Clay wrote this piece and sent slips of it to all members 
V ,^}^ ^^Qi^fature in the winter of igio, before the House acted on 
tt- — Marginal note uritten by my father. — C. 

As it is well that all questions should be fully discussed 
before legislative action is had in reference to them, we have 
concluded to give some objections to the Constitutional 
Amendment in regard to taxation now before the Legislature. 
Admitting some of the evils charged by the Tax Commission- 
against the working of the present revenue system, they are 
to a great extent the results of an imperfect administration of 
the law, and not due necessarily to the Constitutional provi- 
sion for uniform taxation; and such or similar evils would 
attend the execution of any other system. Now, in regard 
to the argument of the Commission that the present system 
is conducive to concealment of personal property, it is the 
universal experience of mankind that personal property of 

> The proposed amendment authorized the General Assembly to classify prooertv 
and in its discretion to exempt altogether, or to tax at a nominal rate one class 
while other classes of property might be taxed at higher rates. An able writer on 
hrth^'/'^rn". f*""' '^^P^essed himself: "The adoption%f such an amendmen wou°d 
be the signal for a herce striiggle before the General Assembly between the difTerent 
c asses of property; and it is easy to foresee the result of this contest Capital 
always compact and organized, with unlimited means at its command, would easilv 
prevail and secure exemption, or nominal taxation, while the small property holders 
without organization, resources or representation, would be ground between the 
upper and nether millstones of taxation." uciween tne 

'One of the chief points noticed by this Commission, which was appointed to 
inyestiga e the subject was that,, although the Constitution provided that ''all proD 
erty shall be assessed for taxation at its fair cash value," personal property ?n 
particular, stocks bonds, money, etc., was so assessed. While real estate as a 
rule, was assessed at a discount on its true value. Furthermore, it was claimed 
that this working of the law, whereby taxes fell heavier on stocks, bonds noTes 
etc., rather than on real estate, was conducive to the illegal concealment ' of the 
fjs,',./'T *^'?^"°"> The gist of. Mr. Clay's argument is that these e^flsa^e he 
result of an imperfect administration of the law; and that we should remedy these 
conditions by better administration of the present law for uniform taxadon rather 
s?.n..^K revolution in the tax system, the proposed amendment would, in sub- 
stance break down the present constitutional limitations for equality of taxation 
and place the question entirely in the hands of the Legislature with all the attend 

fe"cted afd"le°s; agg^essiVe'cTasS'"" ""' ^''^^'^' '"'""'^ '^ ^"^^ '"^-''" ^^ -P- 

[ 145 ] 



the kind that can be concealed, is but imperfectly given in for 
taxation. What security can anyone, who opposes the pres- 
ent system, have, that the system which he favors will be 
adopted by the Legislature, or, if adopted, will be retained, 
should the proposed Amendment be carried ? ^ The ses- 
sions of the Legislature are so short, being limited to sixty 
days, as to not admit of any thorough or exhaustive examina- 
tion of the tax question, and special interests will be con- 
cerned in getting what advantage they can. They, being 
able, will employ special agents or counsel, and they will thus 
get a consideration that the plain people of the Common- 
wealth, either from lack of habit or of means, will not pro- 
cure. What better illustration of such fact than in the case 
of the United States government! There the special inter- 
ests, through the tariff, reap untold millions from the con- 
sumers of the country; and their victims, the plain people, 
are unable to loosen this rapacious hold upon their pocket- 
books. These special interests are fully able to employ the 
best counsel, and do so, and also they personally appear in 
great numbers before the committees of Congress, and make 
big money by doing so, while the consumer who suffers and 
bears the burden, lacking both organization and money, is 
conspicuous by his absence. We would, if the present uni- 
form rule of taxation were abolished, see the same thing in 
kind in Frankfort. To the man who replies that this argu- 
ment implies a distrust of the Legislature, we would answer 
that the same criticism could be made against any other 
necessary constitutional limitation upon the power of the 
Legislature. 

Having given one of the main objections to any constitu- 
tional change, we will now meet some of the objections made 
by the Tax Commission, composed of gentlemen whom we 
highly respect and with whom we regret the necessity of hav- 
ing to differ. They make the point that money loaned in 

•i.e.: The proposed amendment did not directly establish a. new system of 
taxation. It only authorized the General Assembly to do so, at its discretion. 

[ 146 ] 



the cities or in savings banks is taxed too high.^ This might 
be remedied by a change in the administration of the present 
law, and, if necessary, of the Statute law. If real estate is 
practically assessed at a fraction of its value, so may notes, 
bonds and money be assessed in like manner. The Constitu- 
tional requirement of taxation at a fair cash value is no more 
obligatory on notes, bonds and money than it is on real 
estate. The main thing required by justice in taxation is 
equality of burden. The burdens of real estate and other 
forms of capital should be equalized, and that is the very 
essence and spirit of the present Constitutional requirement. 
We do not claim that the present statutory and constitutional 
system is ideal, — the statutory and administration part might 
be materially improved — but it is certainly a bulwark and 
defense against the cohorts of special interests, which in so 
many other cases have gotten control of the power of taxa- 
tion. A revision of the statute laws, to prevent double taxa- 
tion ^ and to provide a better and more perfect equalization 
of the assessments of the various forms of property, would 
certainly remedy most or all of the evils of the execution of 
the revenue laws of the State. Surely, to throw down all the 
bulwarks of the Constitution in favor of equal taxation in 
defense of the plain tax-payers and subject the revenue laws 
to the assaults of the special interests, who can employ coun- 
sel and lobbyists, is not wise. 

Again, if they propose to take taxes off of personal prop- 
erty, then the burden on real estate must necessarily be in- 
creased.*^ One reason why taxes in cities are so high in com- 
parison with rural communities is that the citizens are pro- 
vided with many conveniences; there is great extravagance in 
the expenditure of public money; and besides, if the assess- 
ment is fair, the real estate is as heavily burdened as the per- 

* That is, in comparison with real estate. 

' Under the tax laws, mortgagor and mortgagee are both taxed — the one upon 
his land and the other upon the note secured by the mortgage. 

' "To break down the rule of equal taxation in favor of the special interests 
would antagonize every farmer, and real estate holder, in the State of Kentucky, 
who would feel that the Constitution had been changed to allow the special interests) 
which can send powerful lobbies to Frankfort, to get advantage of them, and to 
throw upon them nearlv all the burden of taxation." Article by C. M. Clay, jr 

[ 147 ] 



sonal property. Some of the money in savings banks may be 
used unprofitably, and also much of the real estate may like- 
wise realize little or no profit. If capital is needed in the 
cities or towns, it is furnished by the banks, who draw it 
from any available source just as it is needed, and in this way 
keep interest in the average just about the same as in other 
communities. In all our cities and towns there is sufficient 
loanable capital for all legitimate business or enterprises, and 
more would be hurtful, or would flow to where it was needed. 
All businesses tend to equalize in profits, allowing for the 
good or bad reputation, the safety or the hazards of each 
kind. When any business becomes unprofitable as com- 
pared with other forms, more capital is diverted into more 
profitable branches, until equalization of profits takes place 
or tends to take place, and so on forever. The action is just 
the same as that of gravity on water. You make a depres- 
sion of the surface of the water, and the water flows in from 
other points to fill the depression, or if the water is too high 
at any point, the surplus flows outward to effect an equaliza- 
tion. So, in general, business will adjust itself to conditions 
under almost any system, but the most important matter is 
that each individual shall equally bear the burden of taxa- 
tion in proportion to his financial ability. We predict — the 
arguments of the Commissioners to the contrary notwith- 
standing — that the effect of the contemplated change will be 
to increase the burden upon the farmer and real estate holder. 
Too much importance should not be given to ex parte statis- 
tics, collected here and there from a very wide range of 
vision, unless in each case the innumerable modifying condi- 
tions, which are not presented and which very likely could 
not be presented, are thoroughly understood. Similar statis- 
tics might be furnished to favor any theory or system. Fin- 
ally, we take it that the main question involved in this whole 
matter is the right of the individual, in whatever business 
engaged, to bear a burden of taxation no greater in propor- 
tion than his fellow citizens bear. 

[ 148 ] 



THE INITIATIVE, REFERENDUM AND RECALL 
OF OFFICIALS, 19 12. 

These questions are now being considered by the pubhc, 
and it much concerns us, before we get irrevocably com- 
mitted to these policies, that we critically examine them and 
understand their probable bearings and final results upon our 
system of government. On account of the faults of human 
nature or a lack of mental or emotional balance, there Is on 
social and political questions a strong tendency In public opin- 
ion, when once aroused, to go to extremes and like the swing 
of a pendulum only to return to a wise equilibrium after hav- 
ing gone far beyond such point. To illustrate: the general 
tendency to a concentration of capital and to the formation 
of large monopolistic corporations with their attending 
abuses of the rights and the opportunities of the average 
man, has brought on In the public mind a disposition, not 
only to adequately regulate and control them In the interests 
of the people, but also to resort to extreme and radical, and 
even harmful, and, as we believe, abortive means of prevent- 
ing such abuses In the future. The Public Mind, for the 
time being. Is liable to lose sight of the fact that wisdom lies 
in moderation, and in considering only one factor of a prob- 
lem, when, may be, many should be regarded. In order to 
get at evils apparently quickly, they may be sowing the seeds 
of Instability and anarchy. 

We believe in our form of well balanced, constitutional, 
representative government in which individual rights are 
amply guaranteed and protected and individual development 
promoted and consequently, as the quality of the units deter- 
mines the quality of the whole, general welfare advanced. 
We consider an absolute or unlimited Democracy as Anar- 

[ 149 ] 



chy, and as no better than a one man despotism; nay, even 
worse, for the despotism of the mob is worse than that of 
one man. The Democracies of ancient times illustrate the 
evils of unbridled Democracy in which there is no check on 
the instant will of the mere majority. The great glory of 
our forefathers of the Revolution in establishing our form of 
government and of their successors in perpetuating it, is that, 
while they preserved the spirit and substance of Democracy, 
they Imposed checks and restraints upon the will of the mere 
majority, so that its sudden injustices, passions and instabili- 
ties were eliminated, and its final will tempered down to 
comparative justice and wisdom. They divided the dele- 
gated powers of the National Government (and about the 
same way in regard to the undelegated, of the States) into 
three equal and independent departments, and provided that 
no one of these should exercise any of the powers of either 
of the others. As you well know, these departments are the 
Executive, Legislative and Judicial. The Legislative de- 
partment was divided into two bodies, elected for a different 
term and by a different constituency, each having a veto upon 
the other. Also the Executive was given a qualified veto in 
Legislative matters. In addition they gav^e to courts the 
duty, among other things, of keeping all departments within 
their constitutional limits, and above all they placed a written 
constitution In which certain rights of ^the individual and the 
states were placed above the power and control of any or all 
of these departments, or that of any mere majority. As a 
matter of course, there was a way prescribed in which this 
constitution could be amended. As a consequence, we have 
a stable and well regulated liberty. Any attempt to break 
down these guarantees and balances can only lead to a less 
stable and protected liberty for the individual. The Indi- 
vidual needs less the power, along with the mob, to impose 
upon others, than protection In the enjoyment of his rights 
of life, liberty and property. 

Another one of the great advantages of representative 

C 150 ] 



Democratic government, as contrasted with unlimited Dem- 
ocracy, consists in the fact that in this way you commit the 
making of the laws, their execution and adjudication sever- 
ally to trained bodies of men of ability, knowledge and experi- 
ence, who are far better qualified than the average voter to 
perform their respective functions. These men, with a fixed 
tenure of office, are selected directly or indirectly by the peo- 
ple, and are responsible to them for the performance of their 
duties. In the proportion that these men are better quali- 
fied, will the quality of the government be above the possible 
attainment and competency of the average voter, acting for 
himself; and by so much as by the checks and balances of 
our system the spasmodic waves of sentiment and emotion of 
the masses are eliminated and their logical and reasonable 
purposes conserved, will the government gain in the intelli- 
gence, continuity and stability of its policies. Finally, the 
power rests with the average voter, and should he determine, 
which heretofore he has had the good sense and conservatism 
not to do, that he himself will perform these various func- 
tions, then the government descends to his level in quality 
and efficiency; and this is the case in proportion to the extent 
in which he exercises these functions. Let us now, for a 
moment, see who is the average voter. In a county polling 
5,001 votes, he is the one after selecting 2,500 of the more 
competent voters. Now, in many cases, the more intelli- 
gent influence controls the less intelligent voters; but, on 
some questions, and these socially the most dangerous, the 
average vote controls and decides the result. 

Our objection to the Referendum, and it is the least 
objectionable of the three, is that it relieves the legislator of 
that personal and efficient responsibility that can nowhere 
else be so wisely placed. The responsibility of passing good 
laws is not placed where there is, comparatively, efficiency 
and competence. With the Referendum, the legislator is 
relieved of the full extent of the responsibility of seeing that 
the measure is well matured and perfected and the best that 

[ 151 ] 



he can possibly make. To illustrate this, we know of a re- 
cent instance, where a constitutional amendment^ of great 
importance, though not satisfactory to many members in our 
Legislature, was allowed to be submitted to the people with- 
out protest or opposition, on the plea that the people would 
decide for themselves. As a matter of fact, said amendment 
was not discussed by both sides before the people, only mis- 
leading statements as to its effects being made by its support- 
ers, and little or nothing said in opposition. The vote was 
very light and very little interest was taken, and the votes of 
many counties were not counted in the final result; yet this 
amendment was of vast importance to the State. We only 
refer to this case to show that, with the Referendum, no ade- 
quate consideration will be given measures by the legislature, 
and that the average voters themselves have neither time, op- 
portunity nor aptitude for proper discussion and decision. 
Such measures, except in rare cases where there is a strong 
personal and local interest, as, for instance, temperance ques- 
tions, will excite but little interest among the people, and but 
few will even vote for or against them. On the other hand, 
the legislators, being freed from the full responsibihty for 
the results of such legislation, will not adequately perform 
their full legislative duties of seeing that these measures, 
properly perfected, are wise and far-seeing. 

Now, in regard to the Initiative. We shall not speak 
of any particular form of the Initiative, but only of the gen- 
eral principles involved. The proper making of laws, or 
business of wisely legislating, is really one of the most diffi- 
cult and complicated of professions. To make suitable and 
wise laws requires more intelligence and comprehensive 
knowledge than is required in the successful practice of any 
of the learned professions. History, Sociology, Political 

' The "Good Roads" Amendment submitted to popular vote in November, 1909. 
Mr. Clay's article, published in the local papers, was one of the few arguments 
which appeared in print against this proposition. His opposition to the Amendment 
was based on the fact that "in regard to the State there is no limit to the credit 
that may be given, pledged or loaned to any County of the Commonwealth for 
public road purposes." The Amendment was lost "although very little interest was 
taken in the result." 

[ 152 1 



Economy, and many other kinds of knowledge should con- 
tribute to the equipment of the wise legislator; in fine, as 
much of human knowledge as possible should assist in the 
making of a code of laws, consistent with the moral and 
intellectual development of the time. Not only this, but 
the fullest opportunity and time for debate and amendment 
should be given for the perfecting of measures. The busi- 
ness of legislating requires a concentration of efforts, impos- 
sible to the average voter at home, attending to his daily 
private business, even were he qualified. On the other hand, 
the selected representative is generally far above the average 
voter in intelligence. He devotes all his time during the 
legislative session to consideration of public measures. He 
has, through discussion, the benefit of the best talents in the 
Assembly, as well as in the State, for eminent men are called 
in to address the committees on important questions. He 
has the benefit of a wise legislative organization for the 
accomplishment, through committees and otherwise, of the 
best results, and of a library adapted to the wants of a legis- 
lator. A bill is in each legislative body read three times, 
after more or less delay, and opportunity for debate and 
amendment are given. For the convenience of perfecting, 
it is printed at the amendment stage, and every opportunity 
given for putting it in the best form. Having passed one 
House, the same process is gone through with in the other. 
After a bill has passed both Houses, it goes to the Governor, 
who can veto it if he thinks proper. In case of a veto it has 
to be again passed by both houses before becoming a law. 
Even after all these pains taken by competent persons, much 
bad legislation is passed, and also many measures are thrown 
out by the courts on account of unconstitutionality. Again, 
how many laws have the opposite effect from that intended 
by their framers ! If we had time we could give many in- 
stances. Now let us take the other side. We must deal 
with the average voter, for he decides. The average voter 
is intensely occupied with making a living for himself and 

C 153 ] 



family and it is impossible for him to get adequately posted 
about the details of many public measures. He has no oppor- 
tunities of hearing on both sides intelligent and thorough 
debate about these questions; and if he does hear anything, it 
is in all probability an ad captandum, or one-sided, partisan 
argument. He has no opportunity of amending or perfect- 
ing a measure. The effect of all this, as a general thing will 
be, he will take no interest, and either give an unintelligent 
vote, or else leave the decision as to the passage of the law 
to an interested or manipulating few. While the average 
voter can give no proper consideration to the enacting of 
laws, he can much better easily make under the representative 
system an intelligent choice in the selecting of legislators. 

For instance, the average man with moderate means can 
select a capable lawyer to conduct his complicated law case, 
while utterly incompetent to do so himself; or a learned sur- 
geon to perform some difficult operation on a member of his 
family for which operation he himself is utterly incapable. 
Let us investigate, for a moment, some of the evils of letting 
the people act directly as legislators. Nothing so injures a 
state as ill-considered and hasty laws. They increase litiga- 
tion and make insecure all the rights of person and property. 
They must increase the cost of government, while depressing 
and discouraging all business and industry. All socialists and 
anarchists, so far as I know, are in favor of the initiative, ref- 
erendum and recall of officials, as they well know that they 
are an efficient lever for breaking down the present arguments 
of society and government, and for producing that insecurity 
and instability that they welcome in their effort to revolu- 
tionize our present system of land ownership, distribution of 
property, marriage and other institutions of society. While 
this last is not a logical argument against these measures, still 
it should arouse our suspicions and increase our care and pains 
in their consideration. 

Advocates of the recall and initiative cry out that we do 
not trust the people. The same plea would do away with the 

[ 154 ] 



constitutions and the checks and balances of our system. The 
same plea would relegate us to the system of Athens, where 
one day a citizen was voted a hero and a general, and another 
day was condemned to drink the hemlock; where hardly any 
prominent man lived through his career, without either his 
property being confiscated, without being sent into exile or 
condemned to death. In the case of Athens, the territory 
was very limited, the diversity of interests very small, and 
citizenship and the resultant suffrage not general, but restrict- 
ed, and the voting class of the highest intellectual quality the 
world has ever seen. Yes, we believe in trusting the people, 
but, for their own good, in the legal and constitutional way 
of our system, a way that the wisdom of our fathers and their 
predecessors and centuries of civilization and governmental 
progress demand. 

Sometimes representatives abuse their trust, for all hu- 
man arrangements are more or less faulty; still, it is far bet- 
ter to turn out one of these unworthy serv-ants at the end of 
his term than to utterly disarrange and destroy the advan- 
tages of our system. At the worst, the misrepresentation 
in legislation can but a short time delay the passage of any 
proper and necessary legislation that is demanded by wise 
and predominant public sentiment, 

A few words about the recall of officials and we are done. 
We will be very brief. The same reasons, so ably given by 
President Taft and others against the recall of judges, more 
or less prevail against the recall of other officials. No official 
can fully do his duty under the duress of popular clamor, and 
the effect of the system would be to put demagogues and 
blatherskites in office and to debar the better class of men. If 
an official is liable at any time to have snap judgment taken 
on him, he cannot, from a selfish standpoint, afford to antago- 
nize any sudden emotion or passion of his constituency. While 
officials should be under the legitimate control of the voters, 
it is far better that they should have the reasonable time given 
them by their legal term of office, in which to justify their ac- 

[ 155 ] 



tions and policy. Again, the frequent elections would dis- 
turb business and retard prosperity, and, farther than all 
else, would give instability and confusion to governmental 
policy, which would, in the highest degree, be detrimental to 
any continual and consistent reforms. Some one will say, will 
not the recall relieve us of bad officials? It might in a few 
cases, but we must consider the average effects of such policy. 
It is far better that a few unsatisfactory officials (if they act 
corruptly they can be legally removed from office) should 
serve out their limited terms than that we should suffer all the 
evils of the proposed system. Again, the reforms — we speak 
of the control and regulation of trusts and monopolies and 
like subjects — that have aroused the demand for these radi- 
cal and crude measures of initiative, referendum and recall, 
have substantially already been affected or are in a successful 
way of being accomplished by our present system without re- 
sorting to any strain upon our representative and constitu- 
tional form of government. The delay has occurred, not 
from want of proper power in government to effect the need- 
ed results, but from the newness and complicated nature of 
the great industrial questions involved, and the adequate and 
complete solution can only come from a clear realization of 
all the factors and conditions of the problems, a knowledge 
that necessarily comes slowly and to a great extent by experi- 
ence. Our present representative, constitutional government 
can, when knowledge comes, we are sure, adequately meet 
all the requirements of the problems of the present and the 
future without resorting to radical and revolutionary policies 
that may be destructive of our individual rights of American 
and Anglican liberty. 

Finally, to sum up, we think that if the three measures 
were adopted, the effect would be to give uncertainty and in- 
stabihty to our governmental policies, very much impede the 
business prosperity of the country, and weaken or destroy 
the guarantees of our personal and property rights. 



THE INITIATIVE, REFERENDUM AND RECALL, 
FURTHER DISCUSSED, JANUARY 26, 1912. 

We see in the last Sunday's Courier-Journal a very able 
presentation of the claims of the Initiative, Referendum and 
Recall, by the Hon. W. B. Fleming — a reply to an article of 
mine opposing said measures. 

Permit us to reply — not repeating our argument — to his 
most important points not treated in our article : 

The main force of the movement for these measures, 
like the pleas for Free Silver and Greenback fiatism, lies in a 
skillful appeal to justice, and an adroit flattery of the aver- 
age voter. The Free Silver and Greenback causes were also 
backed by much more logical and reasonable arguments. In 
these last two contests the prejudices of the voters were ex- 
cited against the money or propertied classes, and the insid- 
ious flattery was given the masses that they knew as much or 
more about the financial question than the trained scientists 
who had devoted their lives to the study of the intricate and 
complicated problems of finance and Political Economy. 
Every scientist who opposed them — and scientists all did — 
was denounced as a satellite of the money power. The force 
of such advocacy was so great that the Free Silver and Green- 
back crazes swept over the Western States — the same terri- 
tory now affected — like a whirlwind, and the right policies 
were finally adopted in the nation only by the most strenuous 
exertions of those better versed in finances. 

Mr. Fleming charges that my argument is Hamiltonian 
and not Democratic; but we claim that it is Jeffersonian and 
Democratic, but not populistic. Let us quote Thomas Jeffer- 
son, the Feather of Democracy, in reference to Representative, 
Constitutional government. Speaking of equal rights, he de- 

[ 157 ] 



clared : "Modern times have the signal advantage, too, of 
having discovered the only device by which these rights can 
be secured, to wit: Government by the people acting not in 
person, but by Representatives chosen by themselves." Mr. 
Underwood has well said, that "the Author of the Declara- 
tion of Independence, knowing well that all popular govern- 
ment, before his time, resting on the direct decisions of the 
people, had failed and ultimately had reverted to uncontrolled 
despotism, rejoiced that the hour had come when a Rep- 
resentative government could express the will of a free 
people." 

Mr. Fleming expresses the hope that we, like Governor 
Wilson, may change our mind and support these visionary 
schemes. We are not a candidate for any office and not 
under any strain to modify our views to suit any political 
emergency. We prefer to stand with Governor Wilson when 
not a candidate, and not with Governor Wilson, a candidate. 
Governor Wilson when not a candidate said, speaking of 
these measures: "It has dulled the sense of responsibility 
among legislators, without in fact quickening the people to 
the exercise of any real control in affairs. Where it (Initia- 
tive) has been employed, it has not promised either progress 
or enlightenment, leading rather to doubtful experiments 
and to reactionary displays of prejudice rather than to really 
useful legislation. A government must have organs — it 
cannot act by inorganic masses. It must have a law-making 
body — it can no more make laws through its voters than it 
can make laws through its newspapers." 

Next, we utterly deny the claim that the Initiative, Refer- 
endum and Recall can handle the trust question and other 
vital reforms better than Representative Government can. 
All laws for the control of these complicated industrial ques- 
tions or other questions, can be much better framed and 
perfected under the Representative System with trained and 
well informed men acting as legislators. With their knowl- 
edge and experience they will prevent those crude and ex- 

[ 158 ] 



treme measures that can only bring destructive reactions and 
prevent any consistent and reasonable control. In fact, such 
control would be impossible by the direct legislation of the 
people. If there are difficult questions unsettled, and there 
will be many, then surely we can the better accomplish their 
solution under the present system than under the proposed 
one. 

Our present Representative system has always been re- 
sponsive to all well matured and reasonable demands of the 
majority of the people. The regulation of Railroads and 
other corporations, the Trust, the Pure Food, Publicity of 
Campaign Contributions and many other laws, too numerous 
to mention, attest the truth of the responsiveness of our Rep- 
resentative government to public opinion, a public opinion 
that is a much better judge of men than measures. 

To the local referendum whch only applies a general law 
already enacted to localities as they may by majority of vote 
desire, there is no objection. 

Our argument in our original article was not academic, 
as claimed by Mr. Fleming, but was based upon the views of 
all our great American statesmen of the past and the experi- 
ences of the preceding ages of governmental progress. Rep- 
resentative, Constitutional government is the result of evolu- 
tion of twenty centuries of the effort of freedom-loving men 
to form a stable government with liberty. Spencer, the great 
evolutionist, defends it in a special essay. This Republic, of 
all Republican countries of any size or diversity of interest, 
with its representative government has alone survived, for 
any length of time, the storms of anarchy. The experience 
of the ages justifies and confirms it. The Referendum, Ini- 
tiative and Recall is an unfit, degenerate variation that time 
and use should eliminate. The case of Switzerland is often 
quoted in behalf of these schemes. If there is any country on 
the face of the globe, where these measures would do the 
least harm, Switzerland is that country. The territory is 
small and poor, business insignificant, the inhabitants homo- 

[ 159 ] 



geneous with little or no foreign admixture, and mainly rural, 
no or little diversity of interest, and of insignificant wealth. 
Yet even here the effect has been made to make Switzerland 
the most socialistic or communistic of civilized countries. 

The advocates of these schemes take great pleasure in re- 
ferring to Oregon as illustrating their virtues. Let us quote 
a few extracts as to how they work there. We wish we had 
space to make them fuller. The Oregonian, a leading news- 
paper that at first supported these measures, later says: "They 
were adopted under the impression that they were to be the 
medicine of the Constitution, cautiously administered, when 
the occasion might require; not as its daily bread. They en- 
courage every group of hobbyists, every lot of people burn- 
ing with whimsical notions to propose Initiative measures, or 
to interpose objections through Referendum appeals. They 
have the effect, practically, of abolishing the Constitution and 
laws altogether; or at least of keeping people who would 
defend the stability and orderly progress of society always 
on guard, always under arms for their defense." In another 
place it says : "The situation is a crank's paradise. It would 
not have been supposed there would have been so many 
groups of persons devoted to strange and multifarious 
crazes." 

The testimony of Chas. H, Carey and Fred V. H. Hol- 
man, prominent attorneys of Portland, the one in an address 
to the Bar Association, and the other in a speech in Chicago 
in 191 1, is to the same effect and equally emphatical against 
the policy. Mr. Holman says : "The percentage of those who 
do not participate is increasing, lack of intelligent grasp of 
many measures Is clearly indicated; legislation is enacted by 
minorities to the prejudice of the best interest of the majority 
and the Constitution itself Is being changed, with reckless dis- 
regard of Its purposes and character." I regret I have not 
space to give further details of the general demoralization 
produced. The results here, as elsewhere, are just what are 
to be expected from a logical and general consideration of the 

[ 160 ] 



question. To be brief, and not to restate the arguments of 
our first article, we must repeat that the effect of these 
measures when extensively used are, and will be, to give 
uncertainty and instability to governmental policies, to much 
impede business prosperity and to weaken or destroy the guar- 
antees of personal and property rights. The larger the coun- 
try and the more diversified the industries, the more ruinous 
and disastrous the results. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE: A FRAGMENT. 

Chapter I.^ 

To the Inquiring mind the mystery and wonder of Hfe 
increase as the intellectual horizon expands. To the child or 
savage everything seems as a matter of course. Only the 
philosopher appreciates how little he knows, and how uncer- 
tain is even that little. The whence, how and whither of life 
are the most important questions, and practically especially 
the "how." All philosophic writers agree that the infinite 
surrounds in every direction the finite knowledge that is at- 
tainable by man; but slowly and gradually the mind of man 
is approaching nearer the limits, although surrounded by the 
infinite both in space and time. 

To do this successfully it was necessary that the very be- 
ginnings of knowledge should be re-examined and the funda- 
mental principles as correctly as possible restated and system- 
atized. The mind of man, in the first place, assumed a great 
many beliefs about physical nature which, based upon tradi- 
tion or ignorance, were radically wrong. The advancing 
evolution of science has gradually undermined and destroyed 
a great many of these erroneous ideas. It is hardly necessary 
to name the successive steps in this long educational process 
that is still going on. It might be well said that the human 
race appeared upon this earth, as a baby appears; and that its 
attainment of its present intellectual, moral and civilized 
status has been accomplished by a process similar to that by 

* An unfinished manuscript, part of a book on scientific and philosophic lines 
at one time contemplated. In private conversation Mr. Clay occasionally expressed 
a desire to write a book, setting forth his views on scientific progress; but business 
cares and responsibilities prevented him from the undertaking. The following piece 
is preserved in this hook as giving an imperfect idea of his views — i'«.r pauca, scarcely 
a few — the result of earnest thought and careful study of Spencer, Darwin, Haeckcl 
and others. 

[ 163 ] 



which the child attains its experience and education, with this 
exception, that the process was much longer and slower in 
the same proportion that the life of the race is longer than 
that of the individual, and that such knowledge as the indi- 
vidual receives from others had to be slowly evolved by the 
race for itself, often accompanied by mistakes and reac- 
tions that immeasurably increased the time required for its 
attainment. 

To be very brief, what has been the main feature of this 
intellectual progress? To our mind the great scientific 
achievement of the ages has been the establishment of the 
idea of the regularity of law. It was first seen that in inani- 
mate nature all physical phenomena were regulated by law 
and did not happen by chance. This observation was first 
made in regard to a few things, and then gradually the do- 
main of law was extended to many things; until now the 
philosophical mind does not doubt that all physical phenome- 
na of the inanimate world are strictly regulated by unvarying 
laws. Then it was, more slowly, as a matter of course, on 
account of the complexity of the subject matter, also ascer- 
tained that the animate world was controlled by and was 
under the dominion of law. This last proposition is not so 
widely accepted, or so thoroughly demonstrated as the first; 
but each day's experience adds to its strength, and the best 
thinkers on this subject no more question its truth than they 
do the reign of law in the inanimate world. 

The scientific world of today then, to formulate its main 
tenet, believes in the persistence of force, or the regularity of 
law. This general proposition includes a great many minor 
ones. From this is deduced the indestructibility of matter, 
the conservation of all kinds of force though converted into 
other forms; as for instance, the conversion of motion into 
heat, light or electricity and reconversion in turn into either 
of the others. From the principle of the persistence of force, 
scientists deduce the proposition that no physical phenomena 
can take place in the inanimate universe without adequate an- 

[ 164 ] 



tecedents or causes. And the same truth they Infer, with ever 
increasing proofs, in regard to the animate universe. 

Now considered in the hght of these conceptions, what of 
the whence, the how and the whither of human life? Let us 
say in the first place that we shall treat of but a few of the 
many important questions involved in this all comprehensive 
query, and very briefly at that. First, we shall state a brief 
summary of what we believe as to the physical universe. We, 
with all advanced thinkers, believe in some form of the nebu- 
lar theory. To confine ourselves to the earth, it was first, or 
at least at a very early period, a mass of nebular matter, acted 
upon by the physical forces now and then in existence and 
gradually consolidated into a liquid and then into a solid 
body. The particular forms of force exerted were gravity 
and the concentration and contraction produced by cooling — 
forces inherent in matter. 

During this process occurred the long period within which 
the crust was slowly formed. Of this period geology fur- 
nishes the history and, as far as human knowledge has at- 
tained, the process. It also gives, from the record left by 
imbedded fossils, the gradual development of life as the 
world progressed towards its present status. And here, by 
the way, let us record the fact that little solid progress was 
made in geology until Hutton enunciated the great principle 
that the forces of nature now at work were sufficient to ac- 
complish every result seen, and must be solely relied upon to 
unravel the mysteries of the rocks and their varied phenom- 
ena. As long as geologists tried to explain the strata by old 
traditions as to what had occurred, or by some irregularly 
acting and supernatural forces, they labored in vain and their 
work bore no fruit. Just in proportion as they confined 
themselves to those forces now in existence and ever working, 
did the rocks give forth and unravel their history. 

The same truth has been found in regard to all other fields 
of scientific inquiry. In other words the more we study the 
Jaws of nature, the more we find phenomena regulated by 

[ 165 ] 



law. Now how is it in regard to the animate world? In this 
field we find, with expanding knowledge of its facts, the same 
subjection of all its forms to the dominion of law. The theory 
of organic evolution is now held true by nearly all well in- 
formed minds in the field of natural history, and also by an 
ever increasing number of the general pubhc. The thinking 
man sees it exemplified in all departments, not only of the 
animal kingdom, but as a universal law of all nature. While 
this theory is not absolutely proved in all its implications, 
yet each day adds to the quantity and the strength of the 
proof. 

As between the theory of special creation and the theory 
of evolution, the impartial mind cannot hesitate a moment. 
For the theory of creation, as held of yore, there is not a par- 
ticle of scientific evidence of any trustworthy character, while 
in favor of evolution there are innumerable proofs that are 
daily being added to. It is the only theory consistent with 
the spirit of the science of today. Every science, as its range 
and spirit are expanded, strengthens and supports the theory 
of evolution. The theory of creation, as heretofore held, is 
utterly inconsistent with the facts of geology, paleontology, 
anatomy, chemistry and astronomy. That of evolution com- 
pletely harmonizes with these sciences. It explains adequately 
the facts of animal life, its forms in the present and past and 
their distribution in space and time. It explains the forma- 
tion of the earth and heavenly bodies from their nebular be- 
ginnings to their present conditions. It not only does this 
but, as Herbert Spencer so well demonstrates in his various 
philosophical works, it explains the growth of society, its in- 
stitutions and civilization. In fact, the best scientific thought 
believes it to be the universal law of the universe. As against 
the theory of specal creation it is impregnable. 

The old theory of special creation in the light of geology 
and paleontology, would imply that, not only in the begin- 
ning the act of special creation was performed, but that all 
through geological time the act of special creation was per- 

[ 166 ] 



formed continuously and incessantly. As this theory denied 
the derivation of species from any other species, it necessarily 
involved that the millions of different species in the past, each 
following in endless succession, were specially created without 
antecedent form. This belief in view of the present knowl- 
edge of these subjects is absurd. On the other hand the 
theory of evolution perfectly explains how by natural causes 
one species gradually developed from a previous one and 
makes an open book of the past life of the globe so far as 
geology is concerned. 



Chapter II, The Regularity of Law. 

Before proceeding farther with the main subject, we will 
more fully explain some of the consequents of the principle 
of the persistence of force. Take, for instance, a ball and 
throw it with a certain force; that ball, if not opposed by an- 
other force, would travel through space with the same velocity 
for all time; but in nature there are probably no instances of a 
body acted on by only one force. When you throw the ball 
there is not only the force with which you throw the ball, but 
also gravity and the force created by the opposition of the 
medium through which you propel the ball. The final mo- 
tion of the ball is the true resultant of these three forces and 
can be accurately calculated if the exact measure of these 
three forces is known. The same is true in regard to all 
other motions of all bodies earthly or heavenly. Again, 
when the ball is thrown against a stationary and immovable 
object, what becomes of the propelling force? In this case 
motion is mainly converted into molecular motion, which pro- 
duces motion that is invisible in the form of heat waves. If 
these heat waves could all be collected, along with such other 
movements as were started by the shock of the contact, they 
would make the same amount of force in the form of motion 
as the ball possessed in the first place. 

[ 167 ] 



This last illustration brings up the corollary of the con- 
servation of force. This principle asserts that force in the 
form of motion can be changed, without loss, into other forms 
of force; namely, light, heat, electricity or molecular motion, 
or conversely in regard to either of these. The principle of 
the persistency of force guarantees that no form of matter 
nor of force is ever lost, or can be lost; and, where seemingly 
it is so, there is only a conversion in the form of the matter 
or of the force which occasions the deception; and, if by care- 
ful experiment such apparent destruction of either force or 
matter is accurately analyzed, it is found simply a conversion 
into some other form of matter or of force, which, when 
properly measured, shows no loss of either. 

As a consequence of this persistence of force and matter, 
comes the regularity of the material world. Were not mat- 
ter and force persistent, no calculation could be made as to 
the future. The science of astronomy could not exist. No 
calculation in relation to the planetary bodies, and especially 
as to the comets, would be reliable. The world would be con- 
tinually changing its orbit, and the regularity of the seasons 
would disappear. The heat of the sun received by the earth 
would be inconstant, and soon from this course alone all life 
on the globe would become extinct. Again, were any matter 
ever to be destroyed, the earth and all heavenly bodies would 
continually vary in weight and size, and all regularity of their 
motion, caused by gravity, would cease and universal chaos 
would come. 

Also in regard to the ordinary events of life the same ir- 
regularity and uncertainty would prevail. So without going 
into detail, the present status of the world, its matter and its 
animal life, would be utterly impossible, were it not for the 
persistence of force, or in other words, the unvarying regu- 
larity of law. 

By the unvarying regularity of law, we must not be un- 
derstood as meaning any regularity of results, for the least 
difference in the forces or in the combination of the forces 

[ 168 ] 



must necessarily cause a variation in the results; but we do 
mean by it that nothing occurs, so far as we have investi- 
gated, in the earth or in the universe without adequate causes 
or antecedents. More and more of the mysteries of nature 
are yearly unravelled to the extent of being found to be under 
the dominion of law; and the scientific mind of today believes 
in such regularity in regard to far off or occult phenomena, 
which have not yet been thoroughly investigated or under- 
stood. 



Chapter III. Darwinian Theory. 

In the previous chapter we have spoken of the regularity 
of law in a general way, but more especially pertaining to 
the material universe. We shall now investigate whether 
the same regularity of law pertains to the animal world. 

In the study of life there are two fields, the forms now 
existing and the forms of the past as shown by the fossil re- 
mains in strata and rocks of former ages. For a long time 
in the history of the world all forms of life were considered 
as specially created without antecedent forms. It was only 
as the science of geology developed, that such theory was seen 
to be utterly inconsistent with the evidence of the rocks as 
presented by their fossil forms. For a long time these fossils 
v.ere supposed to be freaks of nature, and not the remains of 
animals that had actually existed. But more extended inves- 
tigation and more complete knowledge proved beyond doubt 
that these fossil forms represented animals that had actually 
existed in the past. 

So any theory of creation or life had not only to account 
for life as it now exists, but for the myriad of fossil forms 
that had existed in the past. By investigation it was seen that 
in the lower rocks, which were formed millions of years ago, 
only the lower forms of life appeared, and with the ascent in 
the rocks, the fossil forms gradually assumed a higher devel- 

[ 169 ] 



opment and the highest form of animal life only appeared in 
the comparatively recent strata or formations. 

It was also found that there was a wonderful differentia- 
tion of varied forms, and that one type gradually approximat- 
ed to another type, and that thus there appeared more or less 
perfectly connecting links between the various forms of life. 
I say more or less perfectly; for it must be recollected that 
the conditions under which fossil forms, especially of the 
higher animals, are preserved are largely exceptional, and the 
vast majority of remains of animals are in course of nature 
destroyed without leaving any vestige or trace. In fact, the 
wonder is that so many, and not so few, individual fossils 
have been preserved. No doubt many species and genera 
have left no fossil forms. 

To account for the facts of life in a natural way as pre- 
sented in both its history and fossil forms ( for a thinker cer- 
tainly must exhaust the natural before he calls in the super- 
natural), Darwin enunciated his theory of evolution. He 
elaborately does this in his "Origin of Species" and in his 
"Descent of Man." Most of his other works were written 
to strengthen and enforce this theory. Various other great 
minds are entitled to their share in the development and forti- 
fying of this explanation of life, Wallace, H. Spencer, Haeck- 
el, Huxley, Tyndall and others. Spencer and others extend 
the theory universally. 

No one who has not read Darwin's works can form any 
conception of the infinite care and pains he took in the obser- 
vations and experiments he made to develop impartially the 
truths of animal life. Briefly stated, the theory is, that in 
regard to animal life, it has been slowly and gradually devel- 
oped through countless ages from the lowest forms to its 
present high status in man and the higher animals through a 
gradual differentiation. 

Darwin accounts for this variation in the main — although 
there are other forces also allowed their part in the result — 
by the principle of natural selection, or as popularly denomi- 

[ 170 ] 



nated, the "survival of the fittest." Any one who has read 
Malthus understands what we mean by the struggle for ex- 
istence. All plants and animals if unopposed in any way, 
would Increase beyond the capacity of the world to furnish 
them room and sustenance.^ Take the Illustration of Huxley 
of a plant that produces 50 seeds a year (and this Is a very 
small number for a plant) , and If there was no obstruction, If 
conditions were always favorable, if each seed made a plant, 
and if these plants could be equally distributed over the earth, 
and assuming that each plant occupies a square foot of 
ground, in nine years these plants would occupy the whole 
surface of the earth. Now apply the same calculation to 
living creatures, and you arrive at as amazing results. 

From all this arises conflict between plants and plants, 
animals and animals, and, indirectly, animals and plants, for 
space, food, etc. Those survive in such contest as prove fit- 
test to bear the varied competition from all antagonistic 
sources. We are not going Into details, but briefly sketching 
some of the salient points of the grand law of evolution. In 
regard to any particular species, genus or family, those of 
such species, genus or family will tend to survive, which are 
best fitted for the habitat and environment. In other words, 
beneficial difterentlation in individuals will tend to be perpetu- 
ated at the expense of those individuals who have not such 
beneficial variation. In course of time the gradual accumula- 
tion of such beneficial variations amounts to an immense 
change in the original type of the species. 

The best illustration of animal evolution Is the tree. The 
ends of the various branches represent existing individuals. 
The smallest group of twigs represents species. Larger 
groups represent genera, and so on until we arrive at the 
source of all these ramifications in the main trunk. Now let 

* As Milton expresses the thought: 

"Who would be quite surcharged with her own weigh 
And strangled with her waste fertility; 

Th' earth cumber'd, and the wingr'd air dark'd with plumes, 
The herds would over-multitude their lords, 
The sea o'erfraught would swell, . . . ." 

Comus, lines 727-31. 

[ 171 ] 



us examine this illustration, which has been used by several 
writers, a little more closely. The analogy becomes closer 
and better as we more closely study it. It explains to a great 
extent the philosophy of animal and vegetable evolution. 
Just think of the infinite number of buds, embryo twigs, and 
branches that have appeared on that tree in the past, and 
how few comparatively survive in the shape of existing 
twigs and branches. How when two or more branches or 
twigs grow too closely together, one or even all may decay 
and fall off, there not being enough light, air and moisture 
for all. How some limbs survive by shooting towards light 
and moisture, and others only live by drooping to occupy some 
empty space, all available space above being occupied by 
larger and stronger branches. Then think how in the course 
of time even large limbs, being overshadowed by still larger 
or more healthy limbs, have gradually decayed and fallen off, 
so that the old tree, as it now stands, represents but few of the 
various branches that have existed on it in the past. The 
main branches that now exist, do so by virtue of having had 
some advantage over those that have decayed and fallen off. 
Notice that the thicker the forest is, the fewer are the limbs 
and the longer is the trunk of the tree. 

The question now naturally arises, how does life begin? 
All evolutionists, assuming the existence of life, more or less 
agree as to the processes that then take place. They differ, 
or at least some do not commit themselves, as to how life 
begins, Darwin assumes certain forms of life and shows 
how other and higher forms arise ; but he does not touch on 
the beginning of life, Haeckel thinks that evolution, to be 
scientific and logical, points to spontaneous generation of the 
simplest forms of life; and that the whole plan of animal life 
is effectuated by general law without any special creation of 
any particular form; or in other words, that life results from 
the potency of matter and that evolution and all other phe- 
nomena take place under natural law. The question of spon- 
taneous generation is a difficult and complicated one and is 

[ 172 ] 



purely in the hypothetical state, and we shall not consider it 
necessary to our present purpose to discuss it. 



Chapter IV. 



The scientific world, then, believes in the persistence of 
force or the conservation of forces, in the regularity of nat- 
ural law, and as to animal life, in the theory of evolution. 
Spencer makes evolution the one universal law of the uni- 
verse. He knows the following facts : He lives in a great 
world which is a shortened sphere, 8,000 miles in diameter. 
This sphere alone with the other planets is a satellite of our 
sun, making a yearly revolution about that great luminary. 
It also rotates on its axis in twenty-four hours. Some of the 
other planets are much larger. In addition to our solar sys- 
tem there are innumerable suns, no doubt attended by their 
systems of planets, distributed throughout space. He knows 
by the spectrum that the constituents of the other heavenly 
bodies are constituted of pretty much the same elementary 
substances as our own. * * * * 



THE NATURE OF THE ALLEGIANCE THAT A 

MAN OWES AND SHOULD OWE HIS PARTY 

TO SUPPORT ITS NOMINEES. 

From the Lexington Herald, August i8, 19 12. 

This is a question of great interest and importance, and, 
so far as we have noticed, has been but little discussed in the 
United States, and not at all in Kentucky. We all acknowl- 
edge that political parties are necessary in order for men 
holding in general like opinions, to have concert of action, 
and thus accomplish results reasonable and commensurate 
with their numbers and characters. The end in view always 
is good and wise government. We use parties as means to 
this end. Without party concert, individuals hke an unor- 
ganized army could effect little or nothing. The question now 
comes up, when should a man be justified in not supporting 
his party's nominees and what are the measures and limita- 
tions of his party allegiance. Let us for a moment consider 
the nature of a party's principles or opinions. In this age of 
rapidly developing civilization, political parties must keep 
abreast of these new evolving conditions, and in the great 
mental activity of the age, new policies and variation of poli- 
cies are proposed with increasing frequency; so that parties 
which have not changed their names or organization for 
many years may represent at any time, in whole or in part, 
entirely different policies from what they held at some pre- 
vious time, and this evolution of change continually goes on. 

A man, as an intelligent, morally responsible and patriotic 
agent (all of which he should certainly be), cannot as such 

[ 175 ] 



agent do or aid in doing anything that will, in his best judg- 
ment, injure his country or people. In other words, he can- 
not delegate his moral responsibility to his party or to any- 
body else, or he thereby violates the highest law of all — 
the law of his conscience. All parties should recognize this 
higher law of moral responsibility to self and country. They 
should also recognize the fact that very often the policies 
proposed in platform are temporary and tentative. What 
then should be the nature of the obligation to support nomi- 
nees? We unhesitatingly say that a man should weigh the 
issues, at the time involved, and the character of the nominee, 
and to the best of his ability decide as to whether such sup- 
port best serves his county, state or country, and vote ac- 
cordingly, giving the benefit of doubts, if he has any, to his 
party. 

This is the only obligation that a party nomination should 
have — to have more would be immoral and injurious. Some 
will say this will demoralize and break up the party. We 
deny it. Nothing so well disciplines a party as the necessity 
of appealing to the enlightened judgment and morality of 
its members in its nominations and platform. The fact that 
a man allies himself with a party shows that his general incli- 
nation is to support its policies and nominees, and to give 
such support in particular instances any further than judgment 
and conscience permits would be wrong and vicious both to 
himself, country and party. The men who exercise such free- 
dom of judgment should be encouraged to remain in the party 
wherein they generally vote, as the leaven of reform should 
be kept within and not thrown out. No more useful mem- 
bers of a party could be desired. What a party needs is not 
slaves, but intelligent and moral activities within for its bet- 
terment and welfare. 

It will be objected that, if a person does not like the char- 
acter and principles of a candidate who seems likely to be 
nominated, he should keep out of the convention or primary. 
This would be injurious and impolitic, as it would debar all 

[ 176 ] 



those to whom a candidate is seriously objectionable from 
the polls, and result in the more certain nomination of such 
candidate, and thus injure the party. 

Finally, to summarize the argument — a political party is 
only the means to an end. The end is good and wise govern- 
ment. Concert through party action is a necessity to effect 
reasonable and commensurate results. A man cannot abso- 
lutely delegate the exercise of his moral responsibility or his 
patriotism to any one else, or even to any political party. 
Therefore, a wise compromise would be for the voter in good 
faith to support nominees when conscience and patriotism do 
not forbid, and for the party to freely grant such discretion 
without ostracism or depreciation of standing to the voter. 
When a voter's opinions, for any length of time, become in 
general antagonistic to those of his party, he should change 
his party. This rule of freedom and not of slavery should 
prevail. It would greatly strengthen a party to have this idea 
of allegiance generally recognized. It would be the worst of 
folly to ostracise and depreciate those generally intelligent 
and moral persons who so observe and respect their conscien- 
tious scruples. The above rule would hold in its exercise 
the very best discipline that a party could experience, and one 
that it now lamentably needs. 

There should always be a necessity for making good nomi- 
nations and enunciating wise policies, and this is almost im- 
possible under the old idea of party allegiance in districts 
where the majority is large. We insist that good govern- 
ment and the welfare of the country are the end, and party 
only the means to such end. 

The time will come when the fact that a man has always 
supported his party's nominees will be considered more or less 
a mark of mental weakness and moral cowardice, for to have 
long done so in the swiftly evolving issues of modern politics 
is to imply a degree of mental lethargy and moral apathy that 
are necessarily wanting in the intellectually equipped and cour- 
ageously moral man. What thinking man would not trust as 

[ 177 ] 



a bulwark against corruption and wrong a man who has the 
courage of his conviction rather than a slavish time-server? 

Already you can measure the volume of independent 
voting in a community by the amount of its intelligence and 
morality. Where schools and colleges abound ; where books, 
magazines and first-class newspapers are extensively read, the 
independent voter is a power. On the contrary, where all the 
above are comparatively absent, they vote the straight ticket 
without regard to consequences. The leaders of the coming 
politically better times will be men who will have the intellect 
and courage to stand for the higher ideals of government, 
and who will not be slavishly bound by the lower standards 
of party despotism and short-sighted expediency. It has been 
on account of the old idea of party allegiance that corrupt 
rings and cliques have flourished at various times in our cities 
and states, and it has only been by the violation of such rule 
by the better class of party voters that such rings and cliques 
have been broken up. 

We conclude: We should have parties as a necessity in 
the government of a free people, but their rule should be one 
of freedom and not of despotism. The authority of their ac- 
tions in regard to nominees and policies should be considered 
moral and advisory and not despotic and obligatory. They 
should keep within themselves the leaven of reform and bet- 
terment by not excluding from good fellowship and equal 
consideration those who may conscientiously object to some 
of their actions, but who, in the main, approve; for they are 
generally the thinkers and men of ability, and those not slav- 
ishly seeking personal preferment. 

We can already see the gradual evolution of the reform 
in sentiment that we advocate. In fact, it is already here. 
As a matter of course, the election laws should recognize, as 
now, the full authority of party nominations, but any law 
that practically prevents fusion nominations should be 
changed so as to allow the largest liberty to the voters in the 
selection of their officials, 

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